Impact of antenatal iodine prophylaxis on the growth and development of infants during the first year of life

Abstract

The paper presents the results of comparing the physical development, morbidity, and thyroid ultrasound findings of infants during the first year of life in relation to the quality of antenatal iodine prophylaxis. Group 1 consisted of 20 boys and 23 girls who had undergone optimal antenatal iodine prophylaxis with Iodomarin® initiated at less than 12 weeks' gestation and regularly used in a dose of above 200 ug/day; Group 2 included 26 boys and 23 girls with inadequate antenatal iodine prevention. In Group 1, intrauterine hypotropy was much less common in the girls at birth. By one year of fife, predominantly the boys in this group were taller than the infants in Group 2. Analysis of primary medical records indicated that Group 2 babies were more frequently diagnosed with perinatal central nervous system (CNS) lesion than Group 1 ones (61,4% vs. 37,5%). Thyroid ultrasound study performed at the age of 1 year in 18 and 19 infants from Groups 1 and 2, respectively, indicated no significant differences in the volume of the organ; however, its heterogeneous structure was found only in Group 2 (26,3%). The rate of perinatal CNS lesion and that of detection of the heterogeneous structure of the thyroid were directly dependent on the time to initiate iodine prophylaxis.