Lee Swanson Research Update

Vitamin A Supplementation Appears to Lower Infant Mortality

April 2008

One oral dose of vitamin A administered shortly after birth can lower the risk of infant death by 15%, according to a study by researchers at Johns Hopkins University’s Bloomberg School of Public Health.

Researchers conducted a community-based, double-masked, cluster-randomized, placebo-controlled trial. In the study, 15,937 newborns from rural areas in Bangladesh received either a 50,000 IU dose of vitamin A or a placebo approximately seven hours after delivery. After six months, the vitamin A group had an average mortality rate of 38.5 deaths per 1,000 births, compared with 45.1 deaths per 1,000 births in the placebo group.

“Because childhood mortality is greatest during the first few months of life, a single dose of vitamin A administered by mouth to a newborn child can save the lives of an additional 300,000 children in Asia every year,” says Alfred Sommer, MD, MHS, dean emeritus of the Bloomberg School. “That is on top of the one million lives a year that would be saved by dosing all vitamin A-deficient children twice a year from six months through five years of age.”

Pediatrics 122(1):e242-e250, 2008

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