The long term impact of maternal multiple micronutrient supplementation, infant nutrition and health on visual acuity of 9‐12 year old children in Indonesia

Abstract

The impact of the prenatal nutrition and neonatal health on visual acuity (VA) remains unknown. We investigated the long term relative impact of maternal multiple micronutrient (MMN) versus iron‐folic acid (IFA) supplementation on VA of 9‐12 years old school children, and explored the long term effects of birth weight, preterm birth, and stunting on VA. We assessed VA of 3,398 children of mothers who had participated in the Supplementation with Multiple Micronutrients Intervention Trial (SUMMIT), a cluster‐randomized trial of MMN versus IFA in Indonesia. Multivariate logistic regression was used to assess whether of MMN, child age, gender, socio‐economic status (SES), preterm birth, birth weight or stunting were related to VA. There was no siginificant long term impact of maternal MMN supplementation on VA in school age children. We found significant effects of birth weight on VA of the left eye (p=0.03) and left eye with pinhole assessments (p=0.01), and effects of stunting on VA of the left eye (p=0.04) and for both eyes (p=0.04), and of SES on VA for the right eye (p=0.04). No significant effects were observed for preterm birth, age and gender. There were no siginificant effects of maternal MMN and IFA supplementation on VA in 9‐12 years old school children, but there were significant effects of birth weight, stunting and SES on VA.