Prenatal maternal iron intake shown to affect the neonatal brain

http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2015-12/chla-pmi120315.php

Public Release: 3-Dec-2015
Prenatal maternal iron intake shown to affect the neonatal brain
Children's Hospital Los Angeles

In the first study of its kind, researchers have shown that inadequate maternal iron intake during pregnancy exerts subtle effects on infant brain development. Their findings have been published online by the journal Pediatric Research.

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Dietary iron is required for normal growth and development, and for optimal brain growth in utero. But 35 to 58 percent of healthy women have some degree of iron deficiency, especially in pregnancy. Worldwide, nearly half of pregnant women are anemic, and this severe maternal iron deficiency can have adverse consequences for the developing fetus.

Past animal studies have shown that prenatal brain iron deficiency leads to impaired functioning of the hippocampus, adversely affecting learning and memory, and with delayed maturation of white matter in the brain. Consistent with these findings, it has been shown that newborns with a low iron profile lagged in general motor and neurocognitive development.

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These correlations were detected in the newborn infants of a sample of 40 healthy adolescent mothers who were adhering to prenatal care and across a range of iron intake. Despite their prenatal care, 14 percent still met clinical criteria for mild anemia, underscoring the health risks in adolescent mothers and their newborn children.

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