Abstract
Background: Maternal Iodine Deficiency Disorder can result in inevitable cretinism as well as miscarriages, stillbirth and low birth-weight babies. Objective: There is a need to find out contributing factors towards urinary iodine concentrations of pregnant women. Methods: Therefore, the cross-sectional, descriptive study was conducted to assess the patterns of salt utilization and iodine status of pregnant women living in coastal areas of Mon State in January and May, 2013. Result: A total of 144 pregnant women from Pa-Nga village and Kalokepi village in Thanbyuzayat township were asked by using structured questionnaires including age, parity, socioeconomic status and patterns of salt and iodine-rich foods (seaweed, fish, prawn) consumption. Casual urine samples were collected from each pregnant woman and urinary iodine concentrations were measured. Three samples each of the iodized salt and non-iodized salt from local markets were collected for determination of iodine content by the iodometric titration method. Only 83.3% of the study population consumed iodized salt and the remaining (16.7%) consumed non-iodized salt. The median urinary iodine concentration of the study population was 105 μg/L. The mean urinary iodine level of pregnant women who consumed iodized salt and that of pregnant women who consumed non-iodizes salt were 110.47 ± 67.34 μg/L and 95.83 ± 70.13 μg/L (P = 0.336). Iodine content of the iodized salt and non-iodized salt was 20.6 ± 9.2 ppm and 5.1 ± 1.2 ppm respectively. In conclusion, the median iodine level of pregnant women was lower than that of the optimal iodine nutrition for pregnant women, i.e., 150 - 250 μg/L and the mean iodine content of salt samples was lower than the permissible level of iodine in iodized salt, i.e., 30 - 40 ppm. Conclusion: Our findings indicate that iodine nutritional status of pregnant women in this area is insufficient and salt iodization needs to be monitored for the optimal iodine content in iodized salt.
Highlights
Iodine deficiency disorders are a wide spectrum of the effects of iodine deficiency on growth and development starting from the foetal stage and including brain development.Maternal Iodine Deficiency Disorder can result in inevitable cretinism as well as miscarriages, stillbirth and low birth-weight babies
Our findings indicate that iodine nutritional status of pregnant women in this area is insufficient and salt iodization needs to be monitored for the optimal iodine content in iodized salt
Pregnancy is a critical time for iodine needs, iodized salt consumption patterns of pregnant women living in the coastal regions may be variable because non-iodized salt, produced by unregistered small-scale factories including solar salt production, could be available
Summary
Iodine deficiency disorders are a wide spectrum of the effects of iodine deficiency on growth and development starting from the foetal stage and including brain development.Maternal Iodine Deficiency Disorder can result in inevitable cretinism as well as miscarriages, stillbirth and low birth-weight babies. Pregnancy is a critical time for iodine needs, iodized salt consumption patterns of pregnant women living in the coastal regions may be variable because non-iodized salt, produced by unregistered small-scale factories including solar salt production, could be available. Methods: the cross-sectional, descriptive study was conducted to assess the patterns of salt utilization and iodine status of pregnant women living in coastal areas of Mon State in January and May, 2013. The median iodine level of pregnant women was lower than that of the optimal iodine nutrition for pregnant women, i.e., 150 - 250 μg/L and the mean iodine content of salt samples was lower than the permissible level of iodine in iodized salt, i.e., 30 40 ppm. Conclusion: Our findings indicate that iodine nutritional status of pregnant women in this area is insufficient and salt iodization needs to be monitored for the optimal iodine content in iodized salt
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