Objectives: To assess the impact of Vitamin A supplementation to the mother soon after delivery and to the infant at six months on morbidity in infancy.
Design: Randomized double blind placebo controlled field trial.
Setting: 51 villages in two contiguous Primary Health Centers in Villupuram Health Unit District of Tamil Nadu, South India.
Subjects: 909 newly delivered mother-and-infant pairs.
Interventions: Both mother and infant received Vitamin A (300,000 IU for mothers and 200,000 IU for children) in 311 instances (AA); mother received Vitamin A but infant received Placebo in 301 instances (AP); and both mother and infant received Placebo in the remaining 297 instances (PP).
Main outcome measures: Incidence of diarrhea and Acute Respiratory Infection (ARI); distributions of infants by frequency of episodes and number of infected days.
Results: 233 in the AA Group and 228 each in the AP and PP Groups were followed up regularly. The incidence of diarrhea in these infants was 97.4%, 96.9% and 94.7% in the three groups, mean number of diarrheal episodes was 4.4, 4.6 and 4.2 and median number of days in infancy with diarrhea was 26, 26 and 22 days, respectively. For ARI, the incidences were 96.6%, 95.6% and 96.1%, means were 4.8, 5.1 and 4.8 episodes, and the medians were 32, 34 and 34 days, respectively.
Conclusions: Prophylactic administration of mega doses of Vitamin A to the mother soon after delivery and to the infant at six months do not have any beneficial impact on the incidence of diarrhea and ARI in infancy.