Vitamin D is a very hot topic within the scientific community. According to vitamin D researcher and expert Gregory Plotnikoff, MD, “There have been more than 16,000 published studies in the peer-reviewed scientific literature in the last two years alone.” Vitamin D deficiency has now been linked to heart disease, diabetes and even some cancers. More recently, there has been speculation that pregnant women with low vitamin D levels may be putting their children at risk of neurological and, potentially, behavioral issues. Newly published research from Australia is shedding some light on this important topic.
 
The researchers recently announced that women in their study with the lowest levels of vitamin D in their second trimester of pregnancy were nearly twice as likely to have a child with language difficulties compared to women who had the highest levels of the vitamin. The research, to be published in the March 2012 issue of Pediatrics, measured blood levels of vitamin D in 743 pregnant women, and then evaluated their children through parent-completed questionnaires at age 2, 5, 8, 10, 14 and 17. At age 5 and 10, the children’s language skills were measured via a picture vocabulary test.

“This study is another powerful reason why having a normal vitamin D level may be important for the health of both mother and child,” says Plotnikoff. “On the basis of this study, and numerous animal studies, vitamin D appears to be a very important factor for proper brain development.”

Even after the researchers considered factors that could influence a child’s brain development, they still found that the women with the lowest levels of vitamin D had the highest chance of delivering a child who later developed language difficulties.

“In this study involving white women, the researchers controlled for income, smoking and age, three reasonable factors that could explain the difference in outcomes,” says Plotnikoff. “Of these, vitamin D status was the most important factor.” Plotnikoff encourages women who want to get pregnant and those who are newly pregnant to get their vitamin D levels checked.