BALTIMORE—Children of mothers who received vitamin A supplementation before, during and after pregnancy had significantly improved lung function when compared to those whose mothers received beta-carotene supplementation or placebo, according to a new study published in the New England Journal of Medicine.
To examine the effect of antenatal vitamin A supplementation on lung function, researchers revisited a cohort of children ages 9 to 13 in rural Nepal whose mothers were randomized to receive vitamin A, beta-carotene or a placebo. Using a portable pneumatochometer, offspring lung function was measured. They found that children whose mothers received vitamin A instead of a placebo had a significantly greater forced expiratory volume at one second (FEV1) and a greater forced vital capacity (FVC), while children whose mothers received beta-carotene instead of a placebo had similar FEV and FVC.
“Lung function of offspring in mothers who received maternal vitamin A supplementation improved by about 40 ml versus those whose mothers received a placebo. This represents an approximately 3 percent increase in lung function. Furthermore, the magnitude of effect observed in this study is slightly greater than that associated with preventing exposure to parental smoking in school-age children,” said lead author William Checkley, M.D., Ph.D., assistant professor in the Division of Pulmonary and Critical Care of the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine with a joint appointment in the Bloomberg School’s Department of International Health.
