Antenatal Vitamin A Supplementation Increases Birth Weight and Decreases Anemia among Infants Born to Human Immunodeficiency Virus–Infected Women in Malawi

Citations Over TimeTop 10% of 2002 papers

Abstract

Vitamin A is essential for immunity and growth. A controlled clinical that involved 697 human immunodeficiency virus (HIV)-infected pregnant women was conducted to determine whether vitamin A prevents anemia, low birth weight, growth failure, HIV transmission, and mortality. Women received daily doses of iron and folate, either alone or combined with vitamin A (3 mg retinol equivalent), from 18-28 weeks' gestation until delivery. In the vitamin A and control groups, respectively, the mean (+/-SE) birth weights were 2895+/-31 g and 2805+/-32 g (P=.05), the proportions of low-birth-weight infants were 14.0% and 21.1% (P=.03), the proportions of anemic infants at 6 weeks postpartum were 23.4% and 40.6% (P<.001), and the respective cumulative proportions of infants who were HIV infected at 6 weeks and 24 months of age were 26.6% and 27.8% (P=.76) and 27.7% and 32.8% (P=.21). Receipt of vitamin A improved birth weight and neonatal growth and reduced anemia, but it did not affect perinatal HIV transmission.

Related Papers

• → School Achievement and Failure in Very Low Birth Weight Children(1994)154 cited
• Increasing low birth weight rates: deliveries in a tertiary hospital in istanbul.(2010)
• → Serum Ferritin – The Role of Birthweight: A Comparative Study(2023)2 cited
• → Intra-Individual Differences in Development of 18-Month-Old Children Born With Very-Low-Birth-Weight or Extremely-Low-Birth-Weight(2004)
• Low Birth Weight and Associated Factor among neonate Born(2021)