Vitamin D promotes overall health and keeps bones strong. It is also one of the important nutrients that help keep muscles, heart, lungs and brain healthy, and help strengthen your immune system and fight infections.
Vitamin D is unlike most other vitamins. Your body can make vitamin D when your skin is exposed to sunlight. Meanwhile, our bodies cannot make other vitamins on their own, but must supplement them through foods. For example, you need to eat plenty of fruits and vegetables to get vitamin C.
Vitamin D helps regulate calcium and phosphate levels in your body because you need them to keep your bones and teeth healthy.
Without adequate amounts of vitamin D while pregnant or breastfeeding, you may not be able to get the calcium and phosphate you need. This can cause weak bones and teeth and in rare cases can cause rickets.
Vitamin D can help you fight infections, prevent diabetes and some cancers.
Low blood vitamin D levels during pregnancy can lead to the risk of having a low birth weight baby. Vitamin D plays an extremely important role in our bones. Keeping bones strong and healthy is especially important for infants and later development, whose foundation has been in place since the baby was still in the womb.
Health problems related to calcium, bone, or vitamin D for a baby's development won't happen until a baby is a few months after birth. After birth, your baby will depend on calcitriol (a form of vitamin D3) to absorb calcium from the gut. If there is a vitamin D deficiency, the baby will not have enough calcium for the bones and softening bones caused by rickets will begin to occur.
Even before pregnancy, you need to take a certain amount of vitamin D. Even if your body absorbed enough vitamin D prior to pregnancy and early pregnancy, you still need to keep getting enough vitamin D to meet the needs of you and your baby.
Doctors recommend that you take a supplement containing 10 micrograms (mcg) of vitamin D daily during pregnancy and while breastfeeding.
Most multivitamins to take during pregnancy contain vitamin D. If you want, you can take a vitamin D supplement. You will need to take vitamin D supplements during pregnancy to be able to provide both you and your baby with the necessary amount of vitamin D. You should get 10 mcg of vitamin D daily while pregnant and while breastfeeding.
You should only take multivitamins specifically for pregnant women. Always check the vitamin D content on the label. Consult your pharmacist, midwife or doctor if you are not sure if the vitamin you are taking is right for you.
If you don't take vitamin D supplements during pregnancy and during breastfeeding, your baby won't get enough vitamin D needed during the first months of life. If your baby has a vitamin D deficiency, your doctor or midwife may recommend that you give your baby a daily vitamin D supplement at one month of age.
Vitamin D is absorbed and supplemented by most of the human body through skin exposure to sunlight. However, some other foods may include:
Many types of fish contain a lot of oil;
Egg;
Foods fortified with vitamin D - such as breakfast cereals and formula.
Ask your doctor if you have any concerns or questions about taking vitamin D supplements before becoming pregnant. Do not take vitamin D on your own without consulting your doctor or pharmacist.
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