Tag Archive for: babies

Baby Bones

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If you read the message regularly, you know I frequently mention my pretend grandson Riley. He’s 18 months old and he has one speed: fast. As a result, he occasionally falls. While sometimes he does fall hard enough to hurt himself, he doesn’t break any bones as I might if I fell that often. Why not?

Most of a baby’s bones begin as cartilage. A baby has about 300 bones at birth. As they grow, their bones begin to get solid; the cartilage cells gradually become bone cells by absorbing minerals such as calcium. Some bones fuse . . .

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Breastfeeding? Take Vitamin D

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To recap the week, breastfed infants do not appear to be getting enough vitamin D. Neither the moms nor the infants are exposed to enough sunlight to make their own vitamin D, especially in winter. Moms who breastfeed and don’t supplement their infants with vitamin D don’t have adequate amounts of vitamin D in their breast milk. That leaves a logical question: what happens if the moms supplement their diet with vitamin D? Two recent studies asked that very question.

In the first study, Australian researchers gave pregnant women either a placebo, 1,000 IU vitamin D3, or . . .

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Vitamin D for Babies

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The next logical question is this: if babies aren’t getting enough vitamin D from breast milk, will supplementing the babies’ diet with vitamin D3 increase vitamin D levels? Researchers examined data collected from the TARGet Kids! primary healthcare research network, a large cross-sectional study conducted in Canada, to answer the question.

The researchers examined data from over 2,500 breastfeeding mothers and infants who had vitamin D levels checked regularly. Those infants who were supplemented with vitamin D while breastfed had higher levels of vitamin D than those who were breastfed without taking a vitamin D supplement. The . . .

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