THE FOOD Safety Authority of Ireland (FSAI) has defended its recommendation that all infants from birth to 12 months should be given a daily supplement of five micrograms of vitamin D and not a higher level as in other countries.
The HSE has developed a new policy of vitamin D supplementation for infants on foot of the FSAI’s recommendation, which will be highlighted to new mothers in a campaign in the autumn.
Studies have found that children and adults in Ireland have low levels of vitamin D, known as “the sunshine vitamin”, which can lead to weak bones and, in severe cases, to the bone-softening disease, rickets. The most important source of vitamin D is sunshine but due to Ireland’s geographical location and an increased awareness of the dangers of skin cancer, supplementation of five micrograms (or 200IU) of the vitamin is now being recommended in Irish infants.
However, in 2008 the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) doubled the amount of vitamin D it recommends for infants from five micrograms a day to 10 beginning in the first days of life. This change in recommendation comes after the AAP reviewed clinical trials which showed that giving 400 units of vitamin D a day would not only prevent rickets, but treat it.
Dr Mary Flynn, chief specialist in public health nutrition with the food authority, agreed that a lot has moved on since the FSAI brought out its 2007 report on which the vitamin D supplementation recommendations are based and said there had been a move in other countries to increase the level of the vitamin being recommended.
However, she said: “We are playing catch-up with other countries, including the UK, US and Canada in introducing a vitamin D supplementation programme and this is the first time we have had such a programme in Ireland. When you start complicating a public health message, you lose it. We know that five micrograms of vitamin D covers all infants, whether breast or bottle fed and we want to keep our message to new mums as simple as possible.”
Dr Flynn said the level of five micrograms could be revised upwards in the future, but it was more comforting to be told at this stage that they “might not be going far enough than that they were going too far”.
Although breastfed babies are at a higher risk of vitamin D deficiency as formula milks are fortified with the vitamin, Dr Flynn said breastfeeding was still the best way of improving overall health, not just in infancy but throughout childhood and into adulthood.
