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28th March 2024

My Vitamin D Experiment

My Vitamin D Experiment

This pregnancy, I’ve intentionally not taken any Vitamin D supplements. Not because they’re dangerous, but because sunshine is better! Humans have evolved to synthesise much higher levels of vitamin D in the skin than through the diet or supplements. In fact, roughly 95% is acquired via photosynthesis in the skin, and only 5% through the diet (1). Around half an hour of sun exposure at mid-day in the summer sun will release a whopping 50,000 IU into our bodies (equivalent to 50 standard 1000iU Vitamin D capsules!).

My goal at the start of my pregnancy was to get some sun on my skin, for 5-10 mins, at least 4 days a week. This is giving me the equivalent of 10000-15000iU of Vitamin D (or 10-15 capsules), most days of the week. Before anyone panics… I want to add that 5 minutes of sunshine, most days of the week, is what I would call ‘safe sun exposure’, so very little risk of burn.

My Vitamin D results have come in, and (cue drum roll…) are looking great! My result was 123nmol/L. Anything over 50nmol/L is considered ‘replete’, but I like to see this number over 100nmol/L during pregnancy. Phew!

Unfortunately, this isn’t the case for most pregnant women (and certainly wasn’t the case for my previous pregnancy). Between 40-70% of pregnant women are diagnosed as being deficient in Vitamin D (2). Vitamin D deficiency during pregnancy is associated with:

  • Rickets (softening and distortion of the bones) in children (1)
  • Low Vitamin D concentrations in breast milk, resulting in a possible deficiency in the baby (1)
  • Lower rates of IVF success (3)
  • Maternal vitamin D deficiency may also be associated with associated childhood risk of asthma, language impairment, schizophrenia, type 1 diabetes and multiple sclerosis (3)
  • Increased risk of pre-eclampsia and gestational diabetes (4, 5)
  • Increases risk of bacterial vaginosis (6)
  • Infantile eczema (7)
  • Childhood asthma (8)
  • Poor foetal growth (9)

As you can see this is quite the list.

Bottom Line

This post is not supposed to be scary, but to prompt other pregnant Mamas to firstly, get their levels checked, and secondly, get some regular sunshine! I hope others can learn from my experiment 🙂

For more information on nutrition during pregnancy, be sure to check out my pregnancy program.

Until next time,

Stacey.

Pregnancy & Babies