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Author Spotlight: Studying the Impact of Maternal Dietary Deficiencies on Long-Term Offspring Health Outcomes
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Pre-conceptional Maternal Vitamin B12 Supplementation Improves Offspring Neurodevelopment at 2 Years of Age: PRIYA

Naomi D'souza1, Rishikesh V Behere1, Bindu Patni2

  • 1Diabetes Unit, King Edward Memorial Hospital Research Center, Pune, India.

Frontiers in Pediatrics
|December 27, 2021
PubMed

Insights

Maternal pre-conceptional vitamin B12 supplementation significantly improved offspring neurodevelopment, particularly in cognition and language, by age two. This highlights the critical role of early nutritional interventions for healthy child development.

Area of Science:

  • Maternal and Child Health
  • Nutritional Neuroscience
  • Developmental Pediatrics

Background:

  • Maternal pre-conceptional health critically influences early embryonic development and fetal growth.
  • B-complex vitamins, particularly vitamin B12, are vital for fetal neural development.
  • The first thousand days window often excludes the crucial pre-conceptional period.

Purpose of the Study:

  • To investigate the effects of maternal pre-conceptional vitamin B12 and multi-micronutrient supplementation on offspring neurodevelopmental performance.
  • To assess the impact of early nutritional interventions on cognitive and language development in young children.

Main Methods:

  • Adolescent females in the Pune Rural Intervention in Young Adolescents (PRIYA) trial received vitamin B12 with or without multi-micronutrients, or placebo, from preconception until delivery.
  • All participants received mandatory iron and folic acid supplementation.
  • Offspring neurodevelopment was assessed using the Bayley's Scale of Infant Development (BSID-III) between 24-42 months of age.

Main Results:

  • Pre-conceptional vitamin B12 supplementation improved maternal vitamin B12 status and increased cord blood holotranscobalamin (holo-TC) levels.
  • Offspring in the vitamin B12 alone group showed significantly better cognitive (p=0.044) and language (p=0.020) outcomes compared to the placebo group.
  • No significant differences in neurodevelopmental outcomes were observed between the vitamin B12 + multi-micronutrient group and the placebo group.

Conclusions:

  • Maternal pre-conceptional vitamin B12 supplementation positively impacts offspring neurodevelopmental outcomes at two years of age.
  • These findings underscore the importance of nutritional interventions during the pre-conceptional period for optimal child development.
  • Further research is needed to clarify the role of cord blood Brain Derived Neurotrophic Factor (BDNF) as a marker for brain development.

Keywords:
neurodevelopmental outcomeoffspringpre-conceptionsupplementationvitamin B12

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