Food Fortified with Vitamin A

[mysterygirl]

went shopping the other day and was gutted to note that the Chocolate dairy food that i love has been fortified with vitamin A - well i am not sure if its fortified or whether it is a natural occuring thing in dairy foods so am now avoiding all of them - this particular brand specifically states contains 1/3 of the RDI!!! so bugger back to plain old milk for calcium...

[Melbo]

Yes I know what you mean. I wish they wouldn't add vitamins into foods that don't naturally have them!

I wanted some Milo when I had morning sickness but was very cheesed off to find they'd stuck Vitamin A in it. I also love Jalna Vitalize Yogurt but haven't been game to eat that either because it also has it.

Thankfully, nobody has yet decided to add Vitamin A to Twisties for which I am eternally grateful.

[Mumma2three]

I was worried about carrots because of the vitamin A, but apparently it's not a problem, it's different to the Vitamin A in liver ?? So maybe you'll find the milk is ok. Hopefully someone can enlighten you! xoox

[Lucy]

Ladies, just on this, the vitamin A that is of concern when pregnant is animal derived vitamin A (ie from meats and offal such as liver). If it is plant derived vitamin A then it is no problem in pregnancy at all, as far as I am aware.

Ask your Dr/midwife about this, for your own peace of mind. I asked my OB (funnily enough, specifically about Milo and the Jalna Vitalize!) and he totally recommended me to eat them........

[tiggy]

I know that you only have to avoid things with large amounts of vitamin A in them, so naturally occuring should be ok

[Liz]

You've made my heart skip a beat with the vit A in milo! I've been gorging on the stuff!! Just looked at the tin, the vit A is retinyl acetate. Will be doing some research on which vit A that is! The good vit A found in carrots etc is betacerotene (sp) i think.

[Alan]

Lucy is correct. The vitamin A derived from plants is actually beta-carotene which is converted to vitamin A in the body. Studies have shown that a serve of about 28gms of liver will give you enough vitamin A to increase the chance of birth defects by two and a half times.



Alan (Midwife)

[Liz]

ok.. here's what I found about my precious milo! hehe.

Retinyl Acetate IS the bad form of vit A. However the recommendation is that you don't exceed 5000IU per day if you're pregnant. This is not easily converted between mcg & IU as IU is the potency of the drug/vitamin, so it doesn't help much.

Anyway - there's 525mcg of vit A in 100g of milo (which is 70% RDI), and that's a lot of milo! The few teaspoons we'd have in a glass wouldn't be a prob

Plus I also found that vit A is quite important during pregnancy, it's just not recommended that supplements be taken, as that is when you get too much and it can cause probs with the baby.

Phew! Anyway.. I'm still going to drink my milo.. as it makes me have a good amount of milk too

[mysterygirl]

crikey that opened a can of worms - ok - so some yoghurts have Vit A in them as well - could this be something from the dairy - if so if there is Vit A in milk would that be the Animal or vegetable kind ???? aarrgghh!!! must also do research.....

[Liz]

I think naturally occuring vit A like in milk etc is fine. It's when you start taking doses of it in supplement form that it becomes toxic for bubby. Liver also has a high concentration of vit A, so its best avoided.