Abstract
Introduction: Vitamin D deficiency during pregnancy is a public health problem and it has been associated with negative pregnancy outcomes for both mothers and infants. Aim: To estimate the prevalence of vitamin D deficiency in pregnant women in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and to identify the contribution of risk factors to the 25(OH)D levels. Methods: It is a cross-sectional study in which vitamin D levels of 1088 adult pregnant women were assessed. Information on vitamin D intake was available in a sub-sample of 266 women. Results: The mean serum 25(OH)D was 26.2 nmol/L (95% CI 25.2-27.1 range 5-129.1 nmol/L) with 69% of women being vitamin D deficient (<30 nmol/L). In the bivariate analysis, showed that no predictors could have been indicated as no values exceeded significance (p<0.2). Stepwise multiple linear regression analysis could not be applied to identify predictors of vitamin D levels as no values exceeded p=0.2. Conclusion: Due to the high prevalence of vitamin deficiency in UAE, there is an urge for interventions focusing on supplementation, fortification and diet diversity for preventing health consequences during a critical period of development.
Original language | English |
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Article number | 1000276 |
Number of pages | 8 |
Journal | Journal of Pregnancy and Child Health |
Volume | 3 |
Issue number | 5 |
DOIs | |
Publication status | Published - 30 Sept 2016 |
Externally published | Yes |
Bibliographical note
© 2016 Izzeldin H, et al. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.Keywords
- Vitamin D
- Pregnancy
- United Arab Emirates
- Crosssectional study