A Study Of Perinatal Iron Deficiency On Affect And Behavior In Infancy

BackgroundIron deficiency(ID)is one of the most common nutrient disorder in the world.Among pregnant women and preschoolers,its prevalence is very high.At present,some researches have indicated that the brain iron content may be scarce in spite of the normal hemoglobin(Hb)level.Iron deficiency during the brain development in iron nutrition key period may cause irreversible effect.Evidence has been observed from animal research,brain iron deficiency has direct and indirect,and immediate and long-term effects that likely include processes of morphogenesis,cell growth and differentiation, cellular bioenergetics,biochemistry,myelin biology,and neurotransmitter systems. These effects may.lead to a series of changes including sensation, motion,cognition,behavior and social-emotional function.Recently,perinatal iron deficiency is more and more concerned.Researchers found that perinatal iron deficiency can damage the brain of experimental animals,which lead to the reduced initial exploratory behavior,increased wary and hesitating behavior,besides reduced motor and cognition ability can be observed,through the animal model of diet-induced perinatal iron deficiency.However,the study on perinatal iron deficiency in human domain is very limited.AimTo investigate the effect of perinatal iron deficiency on affect and behavior in infancy.MethodsObject:9-10 months old infants,bom in women and children's hospital of Fuyang, Zhejiang Province,and has taken part in the iron state survey of pregnant women and neonatal(by cord blood examination).According to the level of cord ferritin,the follow-up infants were divided into two groups:perinatal iron-deficiency group(SF＜75μg/L,the 10^thpercentile rank)and perinatal non iron-deficiency group(SF 75-239μg/L,the 10^th-75^thpercentile rank).Then the social-emotion, behavior and motor ability of infants were evaluated.The key indications to be observed and tested are as follows:1.The emotional and behavioral coding in free-play,including spatial relations,infant's actions,mother's actions,joint activities and the emotional status and vocalization.In this part,the total number of follow-up infants is 42, perinatal iron-deficiency group and perinatal non iron-deficiency group have 21 infants respectively.2.Developmental evaluation,including Bayley scales of infant development and Peabody Developmental Motor Scales 2.In this part,the total number of follow-up infants is 53,porinatal iron-deficiency group has 22 infants and non perinatal iron-deficiency group has 31 infants.Results1.The behavior changes in spatial relations initiated by the infants of perinatal iron deficiency group were significantly lower than that initiated by the infants of perinatal non iron-deficiency group group(P＜0.05),but there was no difference in the duration of different spatial relations of infant and mother and vocalization between the two groups during free-play.2.PDI,standard scores for stationary,locomotion,gasping,gross motor,total motor were significantly lower in infants of perinatal iron deficiency group(P＜0.05), and GMQ and TMQ were also significantly lower in infants of perinatal iron deficiency group(P＜0.05).There was no significant difference in MDI,standard scores for reflexes,visual-motor integration and FMQ between the two groups (P＞0.05).Conclusions1.Prenatal iron deficiency may affect the social-emotional development of infants, and may be harmful to the development of secure infant-mother attachment relationship.2.Prenatal iron deficiency may lead to poor psychomotor development and the changes of infant's behavior.3.Emotion and behavior changes may be harmful to infant's exploration to surrounding environment and acquirement of outside information,contribute to functional isolation,which may lead to long term effect on emotional development of infants.