Mothers who make sure to get enough vitamin D while pregnant are likely giving their children a better shot at healthy cognitive development later in life.
That's according to researchers at the Environmental influences on Child Health Outcomes (ECHO), who found that kids whose mothers had higher vitamin D levels while pregnant "tended to perform better on cognitive tests assessing skills like problem-solving and processing new information at ages seven to 12."
"Our study provides important new evidence that early pregnancy may be a critical period when vitamin D has the greatest potential to support cognitive development," says Melissa M. Melough of the University of Delaware, Newark.
Published in The American Journal Of Clinical Nutrition, the findings "add to growing evidence on the role of vitamin D in pregnancy," according to the team, which was made up of researchers from institutions including the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and Harvard Medical School.
The team called for more work to be done to figure out fine-tunings such as the optimal dose of the so-called sunshine vitamin and the "timing of supplementation."
Vitamin D is generated by the human body in response to exposure to sunlight, but in countries where long winters or cloudy weather are prevalent, people typically have to take supplements or make sure to eat enough cheese, eggs and fish, which are sources of the vitamin.
Research published earlier this year by The Lancet pointed to vitamin D deficiency in mothers as a potential cause of autism and ADHD in babies.
"Vitamin D is important for a baby’s brain development, and low vitamin D levels are common in pregnant women across the globe," the Danish-Australian team said. – dpa
