MAGAZINE COMMENNS
AUTHORS
THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF CLINICA NUTRITION
Maternal circulating nutrient concentrations in pregnancy:
implications for birth and placental weights of term infants
Background: Compromised fetal growth may program chronic
diseases of adulthood, and it has been suggested that maternal
nutrition is a major determinant of fetal growth. We previously
found no clinically significant associations between maternal diet
and the size of the infant and placenta at birth in a large cohort of
white women living in the United Kingdom.
Objective: The objective was to examine the relations between
indexes of maternal nutritional status in pregnancy and the birth
and placental weights of infants born at term.
Design: We conducted a prospective cohort study of 798 white
nulliparous women with singleton pregnancies. Blood samples
were obtained at _16 and 28 wk of gestation.
Results: The concentration of most nutrients was not associated
with pregnancy outcome. High retinol and hemoglobin concentrations
in late, but not in early, pregnancy were strongly and independently
associated with lower birth weight and smaller placental
size at birth. Each 0.1-_mol increase in retinol predicted a 20.8-g
(95% CI: 9.2, 32.5 g) decrease in birth weight (P _ 0.001), and
each 0.1-g/L increase in hemoglobin predicted a 61.5-g (95% CI:
28.5, 94.4 g) decrease in birth weight (P _ 0.001).
Conclusions: We found negative associations between birth and
placental weights and maternal retinol and hemoglobin concentrations.
These relations may be causal or may reflect an underlying
metabolic dysfunction, such as failure of plasma volume expansion.
Our results provide no evidence that having high circulating
nutrient concentrations, for example, through the use of supplements,
would improve infant and placental growth. Am J Clin
Nutr 2004;79:103–10.
