Effects of Maternal Prenatal Multi-Micronutrient Supplementation on Growth and Development until 3 Years of Age

Gang Cheng, Tingting Sha, Xiao Gao, Xialing Wu, Qianling Tian, Fan Yang and Yan Yan
Additional contact information
Gang Cheng: Department of Epidemiology and Health Statistics, Xiangya School of Public Health, Central South University, 110 Xiangya Road, Kaifu District, Changsha 410078, Hunan, China
Tingting Sha: Department of Epidemiology and Health Statistics, Xiangya School of Public Health, Central South University, 110 Xiangya Road, Kaifu District, Changsha 410078, Hunan, China
Xiao Gao: Department of Epidemiology and Health Statistics, Xiangya School of Public Health, Central South University, 110 Xiangya Road, Kaifu District, Changsha 410078, Hunan, China
Xialing Wu: Department of Epidemiology and Health Statistics, Xiangya School of Public Health, Central South University, 110 Xiangya Road, Kaifu District, Changsha 410078, Hunan, China
Qianling Tian: Department of Epidemiology and Health Statistics, Xiangya School of Public Health, Central South University, 110 Xiangya Road, Kaifu District, Changsha 410078, Hunan, China
Fan Yang: Department of Epidemiology and Health Statistics, Xiangya School of Public Health, Central South University, 110 Xiangya Road, Kaifu District, Changsha 410078, Hunan, China
Yan Yan: Department of Epidemiology and Health Statistics, Xiangya School of Public Health, Central South University, 110 Xiangya Road, Kaifu District, Changsha 410078, Hunan, China

IJERPH, 2019, vol. 16, issue 15, 1-16

Abstract: At present, there is insufficient evidence on whether prenatal multi-micronutrient (MM) supplementation can be an antenatal nutritional intervention or not. This study aimed to explore the sustained effect of prenatal MM supplementation on early childhood health. A total of 939 mother–offspring pairs were followed up in the study between 2015 to 2018 in Changsha, China. Information was mainly collected through household surveys at the ages of 1, 3, 6, 8, 12, 18, 24, and 36 months. General linear models and generalized estimating equation models were used to estimate the effects of maternal prenatal MM compared with IFA supplementation on infant growth and development. Offspring of women who used prenatal MM compared with IFA supplements had lower weight-for-age z score (WAZ) (adjusted β: −0.23, 95% CI: (−0.40, −0.06)) and weight-for-length z score (WLZ) (adjusted β: −0.20, 95% CI: (−0.37, −0.02)) at 3 months old, but a reduced risk of obesity at birth (aRR: 0.30, 95% CI: 0.11–0.78) and being overweight at 3 months old (aRR: 0.52, 95% CI: 0.32–0.84). Moreover, offspring of women who used prenatal MM compared with IFA supplements had significantly higher scores for communication (adjusted β: 0.41, 95% CI: 0.61–0.21), gross motor (adjusted β: 0.68, 95% CI: 0.49–0.88), fine motor (adjusted β: 1.64, 95% CI: 1.45–1.84), problem solving (adjusted β: 0.29, 95% CI: 0.10–0.49), and personal–social (adjusted β: 0.90, 95% CI: 0.70–1.10) skills at 36 months old. Prenatal MM supplementation could result in better infant growth in the first few months of life and improve development scores at the age of 3 years compared with IFA supplementation.

Keywords: pregnancy; multi-micronutrient; supplementation; iron; folic acid; growth; development (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2019
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/16/15/2744/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/16/15/2744/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jijerp:v:16:y:2019:i:15:p:2744-:d:253609

Access Statistics for this article

IJERPH is currently edited by Ms. Jenna Liu

More articles in IJERPH from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().