Vitamin D supplementation: Recommendations for Canadian mothers and infants

Abstract

Reports of vitamin D deficiency and rickets among Aboriginal people in Canada are not new. In 1984, Godel and Hart (1) reported on 16 Inuit infants living in high Arctic coastal communities who presented at approximately three months of age with a spectrum of illnesses that included hepatitis, rickets, hemolytic anemia and respiratory infections. Eighty-one per cent of infants had florid rickets and high alkaline phosphatase levels. Extremely low 25-hydroxyvitamin D (25[OH]D) levels of 6.8 nmol/L to 9.4 nmol/L were found in four of seven infants. Similarly, Haworth and Dilling (2) reported 48 cases of vitamin D-deficient rickets in First Nations communities in Manitoba between 1977 and 1984. A follow-up by Lebrun et al (3) found a high prevalence of deficiency, much of it related to breastfeeding and lack of supplementation.