Nargis Haider Kakar, Yasmeen Lashari, Zahid Ali, Mohammad Tahir Kakar, Aurangzeb Kamal, Muhammad Bilal, Muhammad Ikram Ullah.
Status of serum vitamin d levels in pregnant women from balochistan.
Pak J Med Health Sci Jan ;13(4):1190-3.

Background : Malnutrition mainly micronutrients malnutrition is one of the tasks of public health problem in Pakistan. Aim: To determine the vitamin D status in pregnant women of Baluchistan . Methods: This cross sectional study was conducted on 101 pregnant women who were recruited from the public teaching hospital. Total 3 ml of blood was collected from all the subjects and serum was separated after centrifugation . ELISA technique was used to determine serum vitamin D levels and all the samples were analyzed using Cobas E411 analyzer. Data analysis was performed by using SPSS version 22. Results : The pregnant women showed lower levels of vitamin D with a rate of 51% population. Other women presented with normal or high serum vitamin D because they were utilizing nutritional sources of vitamin D and also sufficient exposure to the sunlight was available. Conclusion: Vitamin D deficiency is a growing public health problem which should be addressed seriously specially in the pregnant women. Food decreases this hypovitaminosis D it should also be addressed at National level like that of Vitamin A and Iodine supplementation programs.

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