Vitamin D While Pregnant Gives Baby Healthier Teeth
Here’s another reason to take your pre-natal vitamins. Moms who get enough vitamin D while pregnant have babies with healthier teeth, according to Canadian researchers.
Moms who were deficient in vitamin D while pregnant had children who had significantly more tooth problems, such as weak tooth enamel and tooth decay.
Vitamin D helps the body absorb calcium, important for healthy teeth and bones.
There’s vitamin D in prenatal vitamins, and in vitamin D-fortified milk, soy milk, and breakfast cereal. Vitamin D is also found naturally in fatty fish like salmon, catfish and tuna, and in eggs.
The sun also makes vitamin D: going out in the sun without sunscreen for a couple of minutes a day produces vitamin D in the skin. The sun helps you make vitamin D year round in the southern US, but only in the summer in the northern states. So northern moms like me definitely need vitamin D supplements, especially so in the winter.
There’s somewhat of a conflict between what we’ve all been told to do – wear a hat, wear sunscreen, wear sunglasses in the sun. I admit I do get lazy about sunscreen when I’m only out in the sun for a couple of minutes, so I guess I am making plenty of vitamin D, even though my dermatologist would tell me off.
So most dermatologists recommend covering up in the sun, and wearing sunscreen, and getting your vitamin D from food and supplements.
And once baby is born, breastfeeding moms should keep up their vitamin D supplements. Your baby’s pediatrician may recommend vitamin D supplements for exclusively breastfed babies. Formula has vitamin D added, but breast milk is naturally low in vitamin D.
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Kellee says...
Vitamin D supplements can be very harmful in some circumstances.
One of the many important functions of vitamin D is the absorption of calcium (from the food you eat). Vitamin D greatly increases absorption of calcium into the blood stream, from where it can go to all parts of the body.
The danger is that if vitamin D supplements are taken on the same day that dairy milk is consumed, the bloodstream becomes overwhelmed with calcium. This can cause harmful calcification in many parts of the body. Harmful calcification is at the root of a whole variety of diseases such as stroke, cancer and heart disease.
When dairy milk is consumed, the casein protein in milk makes the bloodstream go acidic. This happens before all the calcium in milk gets to the bloodstream. The body reacts by pulling calcium from the bones into the bloodstream (calcium is very alkaline and this helps to neutralize the blood).
Following on from the raised acidity, calcium from the milk enters the bloodstream more gradually. As this happens, too much calcium accumulates in the blood. This triggers hormones that get rid of the excess calcium in the bloodstream by dumping it all over the body. This eventually causes harmful calcification and disease.
When vitamin D supplements are taken on days that dairy milk is consumed, the problems are compounded by increasing further the amount of excess calcium in the bloodstream. Doctors have a name for this: hypercalcemia, a condition that can result in serious illness. For this reason it is important to avoid dairy milk on days that vitamin D supplements are taken.
To protect your health you should avoid taking vitamin D supplements on days that dairy milk is consumed (or vice-versa). Better still, switch to non-dairy milk which is far more nutritious and delicious than cow?s milk.
You cannot overdose on natural vitamin D from the sun however. But you may get a sun burn.