Rickets on bbc one news now

[HarrietJones]

Do you take vitamin D supplements? They say they are free for under 5s & pregnant women on benefits.

I can't find a link at the moment & really should be getting kids ready for school!

I knew kids between 6 months and 5 years should take vitamin supplements. Mine didnt really take them till age 3ish as they could then have the chewy ones that are like sweets

I'm originally from Canada and the milk is fortified with vitamin D, so I hadn't even thought about it when I moved to the UK. I also heard that because we are all using high factor sun screens, this is also contributing to vitamin D deficiency.

I had heard of odd cases before but wasn't aware in the increase or the fact we should be taking vitamins even when eating a decent diet( I assumed it was a bad diet that caused them)

Bad diet/kids not allowed outside/sunscreen.

I'm in NL and was at the HV last week - they've got posters up everywhere saying supplement until aged 4. I give drops in milk and take Vit D myself.

I gave it to DD but I didn't know I can get it for free.

Like AlpinePony I think sunscreen is partly to blame. My DD is in nursery and they insists on sunscreen. I have friends who are primary teachers and they also say no sunscreen, no going outdoors.

It's mad. I didn't put any on my 3mo DD when we went to a beach for few hours in summer on a sunny day. She wasn't burned, she wasn't even tanned. She was as yellow as before we went to the beach. I'm chinese and DH has a very nice golden tan when we were back home in NZ. So DD isn't fair skinned. She doesn't need any sunscreen in this country. We wouldn't have put any back home in the kind of sunlight you get here.

no need for supplements
the best source of vitamin D is sunshine
get the children outside every sunny day year round for 20 minutes or so and they will not get rickets

Healthy start vtamin drops are free to those on benefits with children under 5 and tablets for pregnant women.They are available at child health clinics and lots of surestart centres keep stocks.
If not on benefits they cost £1.80,Have short expiry dates on them of 3 months.

I've been listening to the news today and finding this very odd. I'm as well informed as the next person and had regular check ups throughout my pregnancies and never once have I heard anything about vitamin D I've never taken a supplement and I'm not a big fan of giving them to children.

I'd really like a proper explanation of why ricketts is on the increase. I don't get the sunscreen arguement as according to a doctor on the radio it only needs 10 minutes of sunlight and I don't know anyone who puts it on every time their child leaves the house.

Talkinpeace2 - apparently in this country the angle of the sun is such that in winter we can't actually get any vitamin D from sunlight itself however long you are outside so if we can manage to survive the winter we must really need very little exposure in the summer.

I hope someone can link to some proper information.

which is a crazy use of resources when benefit cuts are in the news
get kids to drink milk in the garden and the problem ceases to exist

The BBC breakfast article linked it to breastfeeding - there isn't enough vitamin D in breastmilk, apparently.

Vit D defficiency is on the rise in this country, partly because of the use of sunscrean and it is also apparently on the rise in Australia for the same reason.

I have MS and there are some links between vit D defficiency and the disease so I always take my supplements. I would not even contemplate not giving my little boy his daily supplement as it is not worth the risk. I did discuss this with my neurologist and he advised that it is a sensible precaution.

It is easy to say that you should let the kids play outside more in the sunshine but the reality is that the further north you live in winter there is just not enough sunshine - the incidences of MS also rise sharply the further north you go in this country.

we always took vitamin supplements as children, but that was in Sweden where spending time in the garden in winter didn't actually expose you to much sunshine

back to cod liver oil then !

You still live but if vit d deficient, get general aches and pains, and is linked to diseases such as ms once aadult. Rickets is only when v deficient. In france they give babies a massive dose every 6 months. Think it was hard to test for til recentlt as not many machines avaiable (not sure - gp mentioned this)
A lot of supplements are v low - typical child vits are low - or come with calcium so it is dangerous to give more than recommended dose. Best to buy vit d only imo. Had no idea they were free
I'm deficient and taking mega dose supplements

It's not just sitting outdoors. You need to have a fair amount of skin exposed. And you only get vit d in the UK for about half the year. However you can store them up in the summer months for winter.

There are lots of research on this and it's not a new thing. A lot of countries have added vitamin d to their milk. It's like iodised salt, very common in countries with low natural iodine in food.

dh & I swim outdoors all year
my kids swim outdoors for 7 months a year
vit d not a prob for us
but gardening on a sunny day quickly gets one down to shirt sleeves for much of the year

You know when they say the best source of Vit D is sunlight? Does this still work in winter, when we are wearing coats and trousers etc. Does a bare head and bare hands absorb enough sunlight to get the Vit D into our system? This is something I ve often pondered, I bet someone on here will know the answer! I hate cod liver oil, so take the childrens chewy fish oil capsules, much more enjoyable.

its sun onto the skin so no, all bundled up is no good - but if you go out for a hike on a sunny day, pulling sleeves up is not too painful

but as was said above, a good summer exposure can last all year

It is all very well telling people to go outside more but that is a risky statement to make. Firstly, not everyone is able to get out whenever it is sunny due to work/school, etc. Secondly, the further north you live in this country the less sun exposure you will have.

I spent as much of my childhood outside but I have MS which has links to vit D deficiency. I grew up in Scotland which has a higher ratio of MS than the south of England. Partly, this is explained as being due to the low sun exposure.

I have read into this and spoken to my neurologist who I think is well qualified in this matter and the advice he gave me was to give my son the tablets as a "sensible precaution."

It is unlikely that you or your child will get MS or any other crappy auto immune disease but why take the risk, just give them the vitamins which will not do any other harm.

Nick Tilsley? Why is HE on the news?

There's an update on the Vitamin D issue reported this morning on R4 Today Prog. Apparently, a study into sudden infant death (SIDS) and also child deaths believed to be violent, has found a correlation with Vitamin D deficiency both in the children and the parents. Not enough evidence to make a straight cause/effect link but enough to warrant further investigation.

For those saying that we should just get outside, the UK is too far north for the sunlight to promote Vitamin D production during the winter months, so it's very much dependent on getting enough in summer (when people DO lather on the suncream) to last us through winter.

The bottom line is that all evidence show that, unlike something like Vitain A which is poisonous in excess, it is impossible to overdose on Vitamin D (they've done studies administering 100x the RDA), so why not supplement AND get out more.

my dc get 12.5 micrograms a day in the winter months (tablets that dissolve in liquid, so are easy to take for very little ones).
I take a higher dose myself because broken bones had indicated that they are not as strong as they should be.

Why do we always hear these things from the media? I take DS to surestart groups twice a week, to clinic to be weighed once every 4-8 weeks and of course he's up to date on his jabs. He's 8 months old and we've never been advised to give vitamins. How do these messages fail to trickle down to the healthcare professionals?

I'd be really interested to know how many people have been advised on this by their GPs and health visitors, or am I the only one in the dark?

nancerama our HVs told us in our postnatal classes. We get 5 classes (on the NHS) which I hear is very rare in England.