Vitamin K status of pregnant women after bariatric surgery and their offspring.

During the last 4 years I have been working on my PhD project concerning obesity and nutrition during pregnancy. It became clear that not every pregnant women can be treated in a standard way. A select population of obese pregnant women has a medical history of bariatric surgery. This leads to weight loss, but the surgical interference with the natural gastrointestinal physiology may have consequences. The absorption of certain nutrients in the duodenum is impaired or no longer possible. This can lead to nutritional deficiencies. A remarkable observation during my PhD project was the significant deficiency of vitamin K among pregnant women with bariatric surgery. Vitamin K is a fat-soluble vitamin with essential roles in haemostasis, and the maintenance of skeletal and vascular health. A deficiency of vitamin K can lead to spontaneous bleeding and in the fetus to severe skeletal defects. The aim of this project is (1) to follow-up the vitamin K status in pregnant women with and without bariatric surgery, and in their infants (2) to investigate the effect of dietary intake on vitamin K status and (3) to study the effectiveness of supplementing mothers with two different forms of vitamin K. During this year the technique to analyze the serum concentrations of vitamin K and associated biomarkers will be set up; in the meantime extra data obtained from the PhD research will be analyzed and submitted for publication.

Keywords:Pregnant women, Vitamin K

Disciplines:Other chemical sciences, Nutrition and dietetics, Agricultural animal production, Food sciences and (bio)technology