( e Fawzi professor of nutrition and epi...)Multivitamins Improve Birth Outcomes Among Children Born With HIV,Health

e Fawzi, professor of nutrition and epidemiology at HSPH and principal investigator of the study.

The study involved 8,468 HIV-negative pregnant women. Participants were enrolled at 12 to 27 weeks gestation and randomly assigned to receive daily multivitamin or placebo supplements from enrollment until six weeks after delivery. The multivitamin supplements included vitamins B-complex, C and E; however, vitamin A and zinc were not included, based on findings from previous studies that failed to show a beneficial effect of these nutrients. All women also received iron and folate supplementation and malaria prophylaxis, as part of standard prenatal care in Tanzania.

The results demonstrated that multivitamin supplements significantly reduced the risks of low birth weight and a birth size that was small-for-gestational age by 18% and 23%, respectively. The researchers report that enhancing women’s micronutrient status during pregnancy through daily supplementation has significant benefits on maternal immunity and hemoglobin levels, which would explain the protective effects on fetal growth.

The authors note that many developing countries already have a distribution system in place for provision of iron and folate supplements to pregnant women as part of standard of care. These supplements, produced in bulk by the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), are available at a cost of less than one dollar for the duration of pregnancy. "Incorporating multivitamins into those supplements could be done without a large increase in cost and would be a highly cost-effective method of improving birth outcomes in developing countries," said Fawzi.

Source-Eurekalert/
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