Biomedical Sciences ETDs

Publication Date

9-17-1979

Abstract

This study was designed to develop an animal model, using rats, to study the relationship between the iron concentration of maternal diet during lactation and maternal iron status, the effect of iron and ascorbic acid supplements on the iron content of maternal milk and the relationship between the iron content of maternal milk and neonatal iron status.

Forty pregnant and thirteen non-pregnant female albino rats were obtained at the age of 77 days, and fed a control diet containing 250 ppm iron as ferrous sulfate.

Two days after parturition Iitters of 5 dams were sacrificed to obtain blood and liver samples. The next day, mothers of those pups were milked and sacrificed along with 5 non-pregnant rats, and blood and liver samples were collected. The remaining rats were subdivided into the following 6 subgroups:

i) high iron group, a group if 8 dams fed a diet containing 2500 ppm iron;

ii) control group, a group of 8 dams fed the control diet; iii) iron deficient group,

a group of 8 dams fed a diet which contained no iron; iv) ascorbic acid group, a group of 8 dams fed a diet containing the same amount of iron as the control diet plus 0.1 mole of L-ascorbic acid per kilogram of diet; v) non-lactating group, a group of 3 dams who killed all of their pups soon after parturition and were fed the control diet, and vi) non-pregnant group of 8 rots who continued to be fed the control diet.

On the eleventh and the nineteenth days of lactation litters of 3 and 5 lactating dams respectively from each group were sacrificed. One day after pups were sacrificed their mothers were milked and sacrificed. From the non-pregnant group 3 rats on the twelfth and 5 rots on the twentieth day of lactation were sacrificed. All of the non-lactating rots were sacrificed on the twentieth day. The iron status of these rats was assessed by determining hemoglobin, hematocrit, plasma iron, TIBC, and plasma and liver ferritin levels. Milk iron concentration was also determined.

The dams from the control group had a better iron status than dams from the iron deficient group. Pups of iron deficient dams also had a poor iron status compared to pups of control dams. Dams of the high iron group had significantly higher levels of plasma ferritin than dams of the control group. Their pups also had a better iron status than those of the control group.

The milk iron concentration of dams from the high iron group was signif­icantly higher throughout lactation than that of the control group which in turn was higher than that of the iron deficient group.

Results of experiments with the ascorbic acid supplemented diet were inconclusive even though dams fed this diet were found to have more iron in their miIk than dams from the control group.

The major conclusions of this study were:

i) Iron supplementation during pregnancy alone is not enough to maintain an adequate maternal or neonatal iron status, hence the supplementation should be continued during lactation.

ii) The iron content of maternal milk can be increased by supplementing the mother with either high doses of iron or high doses of ascorbic acid with normal intakes of iron.

Document Type

Dissertation

Language

English

Degree Name

Biomedical Sciences

Level of Degree

Doctoral

Department Name

Biomedical Sciences Graduate Program

First Committee Member (Chair)

Jim C. Standefer

Second Committee Member

Philip J. Garry

Third Committee Member

David L. Vander Jagt

Fourth Committee Member

Kenneth Tung

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