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Vitamin a during Lactation: Relationship of Maternal Diet to Milk Vitamin a Content and to the Vitamin a Status of Lactating Rats and their Pups¹

Maria E. Davila, Linda Norris^2,*, Margot P. Cleary³ and A. Catharine Ross^4,*,,

Department of Nutrition and Food Sciences, Drexel University, Philadelphia, PA 19104 ^* Department of Physiology and Biochemistry Department of Pediatrics, The Medical College of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA 19129

We have investigated the effects of maternal vitamin A intake during pregnancy and lactation or during lactation alone on the concentration of vitamin A in rat's milk and on vitamin A levels in plasma and liver of dams and their pups. Groups of Sprague-Dawley rats were fed diets having either a high vitamin A content [15 retinol equivalents (R.E.)/g diet] or a low vitamin A content (0.6 R.E./g) for 42 d, including 7–8 d prior to pregnancy, pregnancy, and for 14 d of lactation. The concentration of vitamin A in milk on d 14 of lactation was significantly greater on the high vitamin A diets [114 ± 16 µg/dl (mean ± SEM; n = 8) versus 52 ± 7.3 µg/dl (n = 11), P < 0.005]. However, milk vitamin A concentration on d 1 of lactation did not vary with maternal vitamin A intake during pregnancy. In a second study in which supplementation with vitamin A (30 R.E./g diet) was begun on d 1 postpartum, the milk vitamin A content increased progressively with duration of lactation. Maternal plasma vitamin A concentrations did not differ between rats fed the higher or lower vitamin A diets. However, liver vitamin A concentrations both of dams and of their 14-d-old pups were significantly higher when dams were fed the higher vitamin A diets during pregnancy and/or lactation. The results of these studies indicate that the transfer of vitamin A from mother to offspring by milk and the vitamin A status of dams and their suckling neonates is influenced by maternal vitamin A intake during lactation. This occurs at levels of dietary vitamin A that maintain plasma vitamin A concentrations within the normal range.

KEY WORDS: • vitamin A supplementation • vitamin A during pregnancy

¹ Supported by grant HD-16484 from the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development of the National Institutes of Health.

² Supported by the Biomedical Research Support Grant Program of the NIH to the Medical College of Pennsylvania.

³ Present address: Hormel Institute, University of Minnesota, Austin, MN 55912.

⁴ To whom all correspondence should be addressed.

Manuscript received 21 December 1984. Revision accepted 17 April 1985.

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