Heather Carpenter wrote: "I've been trying to do research regarding
supplementing the breastfed baby with vitamin D. Does anyone have any
updated resources on whether it is necessary or not?"

I'm hard at work on this issue. My literature review includes well over 250
articles/books at this point. And the shortest answer that I can write at
this time regarding whether supplementation is necessary is: "It depends."
Vitamin D supplementation in the exclusively breastfed infant is a global,
controversial and complex issue. I do not see how one policy can be
developed for every infant on the face of the planet. Vitamin D
supplementation may be needed if an exclusively breastfed infant is born to
a vitamin D-deplete mother, lives in a northern latitude, lives in a
crowded inner city with little sunlight, spends all day indoors, is covered
whenever outdoors, has dark skin, etc. It's an issue of how well developed
the infant's vitamin D stores are at birth, how much direct sunlight exp
osure the infant receives, how much of that direct sunlight exposure
provides sufficient amounts of the right wavelength UV radiation
(influenced by the angle of the sunlight striking the earth--which is in
turn influenced by time of day, season, and latitude), and how much of that
UV radiation makes it past skin pigmentation. For human beings (and most
mammals) direct exposure of the skin to sunlight is the biologically normal
and most common means of attaining sufficient levels of vitamin D. Dietary
intake becomes important only when skin exposure to sunlight is inadequate
and the body's stores are low.

Hope this helps a little. I'll certainly send a post to LACTNET when my
first article has been published.

Cynthia

Cynthia Good Mojab, MS Clinical Psychology
Ammawell
Email: [log in to unmask]; Web site: http://home.attbi.com/~ammawell

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