Are you getting your vitamin drops?

October 17, 2007 - 10:44 AM by

I always wondered why it was recommended to give babies in Israel vitamin A and D drops in their first year, when babies in the US weren’t given these supplements. Now the Health ministry has decided that babies no longer have to receive vitamin A drops because they get enough in their diet, but they must continue to receive vitamin D. 

Why? Not enough sunshine? Come on. We’re the world leaders in solar power. Turns out, Arab and Haredi children are at high risk of soft bones, rickets or a whole host of other diseases like diabetes and multiple sclerosis because they generally wear clothing that covers their limbs all year round, and aren’t exposed to sunlight. The mothers are also covered up, so their breast milk doesn’t contain enough of the vitamin either. 

Now I understand why my mother used to put me outside to air in my pram in Scotland. With those long dark winters, and rainy summers vitamin D was a short commodity. The result – summer or winter, whatever the temperature, if it was sunny, out I would go. Couldn’t she just have used vitamin drops?  

 

Tags: • Category: General, Life 

Comments

2 Comments on Are you getting your vitamin drops?

  1. Yael on Wed, Oct 17th 2007 3:38 PM

    2. I saw this in the Jerusalem Post last week.

    I was relieved since we almost never my son his. He is faired skinned as am I, and I’m not totally all covered up so I think we are okay.

  2. nicky on Wed, Oct 17th 2007 9:53 PM

    3. Yup. I also periodically forgot to give any of my boys the drops, and was mighty pleased to see they don’t really need them. But why recommend it to the whole population, if only part of it needs it?

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