Abstract:
Vitamin A deficiency remains a significant health risk
in developing countries, affecting infants and children in
particular. To counter child malnutrition, mothers are
encouraged to breastfeed to ensure that their children
receive adequate macro- and micronutrients, including
vitamin A. However, this assumes that the mother has
sufficient vitamin A intake to provide enough vitamin A
to her child. This study investigates maternal and infant
intakes of locally available foods of high vitamin A
content in a rural agricultural community in Kenya.
The study aims to establish the community risk for
vitamin A deficiency and to assess whether breast milk
is adequate to maintain and build retinol reserves of the
breastfed infant. The study assesses 62 mother-child pairs
and employs several methods to support its objectives,
including the Helen Keller International food-frequency
survey, maternal and infant anthropometric measure-
ments, and maternal breast-milk and blood samples
to determine breast-milk and serum retinol levels. We
found that mothers with marginal (< 0.700 μmol/l)
serum retinol and breast-milk deficient (< 1.05 μmol/l)
in retinol accounted for 45.2% and 77.4%, of our sample,
respectively. A significant (p < 0.05) proportion (40.3%)
of mothers had breast milk deficient in retinol and
marginal levels of serum retinol. The risk of vitamin A
deficiency in breastfed infants older than six months was
high, because 89.5% of them did not consume foods high
in vitamin A content three times weekly. The primary
source of vitamin A for infants younger than six monthswas breast-milk deficient in retinol vitamin A. This study
suggests that in this rural community, breastfed infants
may not receive appropriate foods with high vitamin A
content and that although exclusive breastfeeding is advo-
cated, most breast milk is deficient in retinol, further
heightening the risk of vitamin A deficiency.
