VITAMIN C IN HUMAN PREGNANCY AND LACTATION

Abstract

In the preceding communication,¹ it has been shown that the fetus acts as a parasite on the mother for its vitamin C and that the requirement of the mother for this substance is therefore considerably increased during pregnancy. In this paper, we shall present data on the vitamin C content of breast milk and of maternal and infant blood plasma during the nursing period. In 1936, several investigators reported on the vitamin C content of human milk. Kasahara and Kawashima's² values were between 4.2 and 5.6 mg. per hundred cubic centimeters, and Wachholder's³ averaged 4.4 mg. Stoerr⁴ reported an average of 3 mg. and found the figure slightly higher for colostrum. De Haas and Meulemans⁵ found the colostrum of native Indian and Chinese women to contain 5 mg. of ascorbic acid per hundred cubic centimeters, while milk sampled later in the puerperium contained about 4