Inexpensive Prenatal Supplement Increases Birth Weight

15.02.2019

For women in resource-poor settings, taking a certain daily nutritional supplement before conception or in early pregnancy may provide enough of a boost to improve the baby’s growth, according to a new study. The inexpensive supplement consists of dried skimmed milk, soybean and peanut extract blended into a peanut butter-like consistency. Weighing less than an ounce, the supplement is fortified with essential vitamins and minerals and provides protein and fatty acids often lacking in the women’s diets.

Researchers distributed the supplement to women in rural areas of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Guatemala, India and Pakistan. Roughly 7,300 women were randomised to either receive the supplement three months before conception or during the first trimester (third) of pregnancy or receive no supplement other than what they may have received from local health services. Women in the supplement groups were 31 per cent less likely to have an infant that was of shorter length (stunted) at birth and 22 per cent less likely to have an infant that was small for gestational age. According to the authors, these findings show that it is possible in poor areas inexpensively to improve maternal nutrition before and in the early stages of pregnancy.

The study was conducted by researchers in the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD) Global Network for Women’s and Children’s Health Research. The study also received support from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.

Science Daily. February 11. The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition. February 1.