Vitamin A and Bone Deficiency

My pediatrician is a strong advocate of multivitamin supplements. I am not sure whether it is the irresponsibility of parents or his strong opinions about supplements that drive his advocacy, but he believes children should be receiving them.

As long as I was breastfeeding, I did not give my child a vitamin supplement. When he was quickly weaned and switched to milk I began giving them to him worrying that he might be missing something. I always try to give him very complete meals using the food groups and I feel incredibly guilty if I fail to give him all that he should be getting. After all, his dietary needs are completely my responsibility and will be for a long time. What pressure!

Last week I was reading an article in the June issue of "Parents" when I read something that alarmed me. The article begins by saying that if children are eating a variety of foods then they do not need multivitamin supplements. If they do not drink 4 cups of milk each day then they will need extra vitamin D. One place this can be found is in fortified orange juice (which is often fortified with calcium as well). Now for the alarm. "Unfortunately, many multivitamins contain too much vitamin A, which in high doses, can lead to bone weakening or other side effects". It goes on to say that children ages 1 to 3 should get 1,000 IU of vitamin A each day and children ages 4 and up should get 1,300 IU. This is one case where more is not better. When I looked at my child's multivitamin, it had more than the recommended amount.

I chose to stop the multivitamins immediately and continue giving well balanced meals until I can discuss this with my pediatrician. I was surprised by this information because I had not read it elsewhere.