Vit D levels- x posted in life with babe

[Bubblette]

Hi Mamas,

      We had to have some blood work done on DS so the Dr. threw in iron and Vit D levels too.  His iron was fine but his Vit D level was 60, and she wants it over 75.  So she recommended infant vitamin drops.  I'm  a bit leery of synthetic vitamins and am thinking about putting myself on some good cod liver oil.  DS is 5.5 months old and exclusively breastfed.  We're all looking forward to starting solids blw style next month.

Has anyone else had this happen?  how did you address it?

[HRJ]

Honestly, if his level is 60, I wouldn't supplement a child that age.  We supplement but our levels are lower. 

[tanyalynn]

What are the units for that?  There are 2 scales in use and unless your doc is really alternative, that's toward the high end of the range that's most common in the US.  I remember the other scale is different and generally higher but I don't remember how much.

I wouldn't use cod liver oil to change either of your vitamin D levels.  It has enough A that the D that's in there just offsets the extra needed--the A and D work together, you increase your A intake and your need for D increases since both are used up doing stuff. 

[karen1968]

If you are looking to sup Vit D and don't want the "other stuff", consider a product like Carlson's Baby Drops. Each drop is 400iu of Vit D3. I currently give it to my DD by putting the drop on my finger and letting her suck it for a bit.  I am doing this now (she is 3w tomorrow) because my son ha tooth decay problems and at 2yo his level was 25 (mine was 32). I supplement, too, but haven't seen any good info as to how much comes through the breastmilk.

[brenda-sw]

I thought anything above 40-50 (cannot remember exactly) was perfectly acceptable and really good.  Both my kids were low- one was in 20's and one was in 30's....

Brenda

[HRJ]

Our scale is 30-80, but most of the drs I see still want it in the 40s or 50s as a minimum.  We use the Carlson's baby drops for my son (his level was 11 and mine was 8 - in the middle of summer).  I think 60 is fine (if using the 30-80 scale), and I think some drs go overboard with wanting extremely high levels of D.