Identifying a Window of Vulnerability during Fetal Development in a Maternal Iron Restriction Model

It is well acknowledged from observations in humans that iron deficiency during pregnancy can be associated with a number of developmental problems in the newborn and developing child. Due to the obvious limitations of human studies, the stage during gestation at which maternal iron deficiency causes an apparent impairment in the offspring remains elusive. In order to begin to understand the time window(s) during pregnancy that is/are especially susceptible to suboptimal iron levels, which may result in negative effects on the development of the fetus, we developed a rat model in which we were able to manipulate and monitor the dietary iron intake during specific stages of pregnancy and analyzed the developing fetuses. We established four different dietary-feeding protocols that were designed to render the fetuses iron deficient at different gestational stages. Based on a functional analysis that employed Auditory Brainstem Response measurements, we found that maternal iron restriction initiated prior to conception and during the first trimester were associated with profound changes in the developing fetus compared to iron restriction initiated later in pregnancy. We also showed that the presence of iron deficiency anemia, low body weight, and changes in core body temperature were not defining factors in the establishment of neural impairment in the rodent offspring

Longitudinal pattern and reference values of obesity indices of infants in Jahrom (Southern Region of), Iran

Objective: Obesity (scaled weight-by-height index) charts of a cohort of 597 healthy infants (391 boys and 206 girls) living in Jahrom (Southern Iran) are presented. Material & Methods: An adjusted weight-for-height was used to develop power type obesity indices, Ip=W/Hp. Polynomial modeling was used by applying HRY (Healy, Rasbash, Yang) nonparametric method to estimate age-related smoothed centiles of obesity. Findings: The optimal value of p was found to be 2.5 for girls and 2 boys. No more than cubic and quadratic polynomials were neede to fit obesity-for-age smoothly for infants. Infant's obesity increases from birth to six months decreases later on to the age of 20 months when it becomes stable. Conclusions: Using age-dependent obesity index (scaled weight by height) is an appropriate index which explores the degree of fatness. A local standard for assessing obesity in clinical practice as well as community health programs in Iran is of urgent need; our data serve this purpose