14 DAY TRIAL // In a positive twist, more new mothers today choose to breastfeed their children, as this is the most natural way to go about taking care of the young ones. But breast milk does not provide sufficient amounts of vitamin D, and moms need to be aware of this too.
According to the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP), a newborn needs to receive as much as 400 international units (IU) of the chemical each single day. Breast milk doesn't come even close to supplying that amount of the stuff.
In adults, simple exposure to sunlight for 10 minutes each day leads to the creation of sufficient amounts of vitamin D in the skin, but infants need to be protected until they are six months old, due to the fact that exposure to sunlight increases skin cancer risk.
AAP recommendations show that newborns need to be administered extra vitamin D shortly after birth, in the form of droplets. But only 5 to 13 percent of new moms know this when they give birth, LiveScience reports.
“I think that the perception that 'breast is best' leaves people just giving the breast milk and thinking that there isn’t anything else that the breast milk might be missing,” explains University of Michigan pediatric endocrinologist Dr. Joyce Lee.
He says that statistics for 2007-2008 show that only half of pediatrics experts recommend vitamin D supplements for newborns. The literature new moms usually read before giving birth is also scarce in mentions of these supplements.
The reason why vitamin D is so critically important is because it facilitates the absorption and fixation of calcium and phosphorus from food into bones, making them stronger. Without the vitamin, calcium deposition patterns go haywire, and the chemicals in unevenly distributed, and also poorly absorbed.
This can over time lead to skeletal deformities, and bones that are a lot easier to break or fracture. The vitamin also provides a boost for the children's immune systems, which will come in handy later in life.
One of the reasons why pediatricians do not recommend supplements is because they fear that mothers who want to breastfeed may be deterred from doing so when they learn about the vitamin D deficiency.
“We really want parents to breastfeed, and if we're saying the breast milk really isn't complete, that you need something extra, then that might be an inhibition to breastfeeding,” explains Dr Kenneth Feldman.
He holds an appointment as a pediatrician at the Seattle Children's Hospital. “So those folks who place a greater importance on having the breastfeeding itself […] might elect not to do anything that would dissuade families from breastfeeding,” he adds.