Infant and Maternal Vitamin D Supplementation: Clinician Perspectives and Practices.

Abstract

Rates of infant vitamin D supplementation fall short of guideline recommendations. We explored this discrepancy from the clinician perspective as they advise and affect this important intervention to prevent rickets. We compared infant and high-dose maternal vitamin D supplementation prescribing attitudes and practices between infant-only clinicians (IC) and clinicians who care for mothers and infants (MIC). We surveyed clinicians in departments of family medicine, obstetrics/gynecology, primary care pediatrics, neonatology, newborn nursery, and members of vitamin D and rickets working groups and a social media group for lactation medicine providers about their perspectives and practices regarding vitamin D supplementation. 360 clinician survey responses were analyzed. In current practice, IC were more likely than MIC to recommend vitamin D supplementation to exclusively (<i>P < .001</i>) and partially breastfed infants (<i>P = .005</i>). MIC were more likely than IC to discuss infant and high-dose maternal supplementation options and let the parents/caregivers choose (34.7%, 22.0%, <i>P = .009</i>). If supplementing the mother with high-dose vitamin D or the infant directly each provided adequate vitamin D in the infant, MIC were more likely than IC to think that supplementation of the mother would be preferred by parents/caregivers (63.0%, 45.2%, <i>P = .003</i>), improve adherence (66.5%, 49.4%, <i>P = .006</i>), and promote breastfeeding (54.7%, 36.5%, <i>P = .001</i>); they were also more likely to recommend supplementation of the mother (17.7%, 8.9%, <i>P = .04</i>). MIC are more likely than IC to embrace high-dose maternal vitamin D supplementation to provide adequate vitamin D for infants. This highlights an opportunity for further education of clinicians about this option.