The study enrolled 15,937 newborns from rural communities in northwest Bangladesh, where over 90 percent of babies are born at home. Half were randomly selected to receive a 50,000 IU dose of vitamin A within few hours of birth, while the other half received a placebo.
The researchers found that the mortality rate for the vitamin A group was 38.5 deaths per 1,000 births compared to 45.1 deaths per 1,000 births for the non-vitamin A group. A 200,000 IU dose of vitamin A is recommended semi-annually for older children.
The study, which is published in the July 2008 edition of the journal Pediatrics, found that vitamin A not only reduced infant deaths from all causes but it also cut down the severity of potentially fatal infections which are responsible for most deaths in early infancy in South Asia.
It is estimated that a single dose of vitamin A administered by mouth to a newborn child can save the lives of an additional 300,000 children in Asia every year. However, more studies are urgently needed to determine if vitamin A supplementation at infancy would reduce mortality among infants in other regions, the researchers cautioned.
