Mechanistic studies in swine to evaluate newborn infant vitamin A dosing strategies (260.1)

Clinically, infant care is challenging especially in resource-poor developing countries where small-for-gestational-age is common and in any country when an infant is born prematurely. Several components comprise perinatal mortality of infants. Children suffering from vitamin A deficiency have a greater risk of irreversible blindness and dying from infectious diseases. Supplementation programs are an approach to address this issue. Studies have found little or no improvement in infant vitamin A status after supplementing with 25,000 IU vitamin A. Based on WHO’s recommendations, children ages 6 - 11 mo receive 100,000 IU vitamin A and those 12 - 59 mo receive 200,000 IU vitamin A every 4 to 6 mo. Multi-centered and randomized trials of infant supplementation programs have shown inconsistent results. Infant supplementation itself has been debated due to the higher incidence of bulging fontanelle in vitamin A-dosed infants. Therefore, a series of studies were performed in a swine model to evaluate infant dos...