Vitamin D - Palos Hills,IL

Call and ask your ped what you should use. That's a better source of information than asking us, to be honest.

Dawn

www.vitacost.com has Carlson's infant D3 drops. They really are the best! You can also ask Whole Foods to order them for you and they should get them in a couple of days. Many chiropractors carry the Carlson brand as well, so you can check around. Online stores have fantastic prices, though!

Do you take D3? If you are taking it, then I believe you are passing it on to your baby through your breastmilk.

I respectfully disagree with the statement below that supplements are not natural. *Some* are not natural, but there is a vast array of bio available supplements that are natural and make up for our food supply's poor quality. Many of our foods are processed with vitamins that our bodies are not able to use, such as milk and cereal. Supplementation is a valuable tool for health, if used wisely.

Your doctor can test your daughter's vitamin d levels, as well as yours. We are severely lacking in Vitamin D3 up here in the north, so you are right to be concerned! :) Summertime is great for getting vitamin D from the sun, but we in the north need to supplement from October to May, as per my doctor.

My whole family takes vitamin D3. You can't get enough from sun. In summer, MAYBE, if you try. Not a change in the midwest in the winter! From food? You'd really have to try.

The kids and I all do the gummy kind. Yum!
For a baby they have plenty of vitamin D drops. I too value natural and organic, but I use what vitamin D supplement are available because the risk of not doing so outweighs the cons of having it not 100% natural, for example.

I do stick newborns out in the sun a few times a week for 10 minutes, direct exposure. But that's only in summer. In the winter, not a change of any real sun. :)

http://www.proteinpower.com/drmike/supplements/sunshine-s... My mother told me to read his book. Sadly I haven't because I can't find it at the local library.

"I had to take the book back to the library, but I what I wrote down was 1500-2000 for adults and pregnant women (double for obese people because apparently D gets stored in fat and not released), 2000-4000 for lactating women.
For all people, apparently you would have to take more than 10,000 units to overdose."

That quote is what my mother passed on to me... I do not swear as to it's accuracy.

I would say though that if you're taking Vit. D supplements and breast feeding. You don't need to give baby additional.

I agree with Sunshine. I've been taking high-quality vitamins and supplements--even some nutriceuticals--for the past 4 years now. They helped me come back after my body hit rock bottom from food allergies, food intolerances, malabsorption, you name it. vitacost.com has some excellent, excellent high-quality supplements; it's my shopping place, after Whole Foods.

Those of us who live in the northern hemisphere MUST SUPPLEMENT with Vit D3 in the winter months. We DO NOT get enough sunlight exposure to make enough Vit D3 naturally. In the summer, yes. In the winter, no. (Sorry Gamma G. There isn't enough sunlight in the winter in Illinois or Wisconsin or Minnesota for us to get enough Vit D3 without supplementation.)

Our food supply chain is so woefully inadequate as far as vitamins and minerals go; I haven't shopped for food at a grocery store in 4 years. In the Madison, WI, area I buy my food at Whole Foods, Willy Street Co-Op, HyVees (their gluten-free/organic section only), COSTCO (for their KIRKLAND organic section only), and Woodman's Warehouse (their allergen/organic 2-asile section only).

Once you wake up and start REALLY looking and reading and researching everything--ag/chemical, big business, pharma/medical, military--it comes as no surprise that our poor food supply is that way for a reason. It's to run the profit-making mill of sick bodies that need continuous healthcare. It's sad, actually. But you can break out of this cycle by waking up, seeing what's going on, eating better (organic, no GMO, no preservatives, no chemicals/pesticides), and building up your body's immune system with quality supplements.

If you have an artificial medical sunbox, that can also replace some actual sunshine time. But don't go out and buy one unless you have to; they are expensive. I only have one because at one time, I was "diagnosed" with Seasonal Affective Disorder. Which, as I found out years later, is just another fancy label for the doctors to say--we don't know why you're sick and depressed in the winter. Here, let's put you in front of this 10,000 watt artificial sunbox (which does work, BTW) and put you on some antidepressants while we're at it.

Um, SAD is another way of saying that your body doesn't have enough Vit D3. The reason there is such a thing as SAD and that it happens during the winter months is because there isn't enough sunlight in the upper/northern atmophere during the winter months.

Now that I take Vit D3 (I take Bio-D-Mulsion from my naturopathic; it's some liquid drops that I put into water and drink), I no longer have SAD and there is absolutely no reason for me to be on antidepressants. In fact--I never needed to be on antidepressants to begin with. If the allopathic doctors had actually looked for the cause of my symtoms, they would have found my very low levels of Vit D3. But they never looked.

So KUDOS to you, mom, for making sure your kids have good enough levels of Vit D3 in their bodies!! That will ensure that they grow up healthy and strong--and hopefully, their immune systems will be strong enough so they can fight off most colds, flus, and infections. A win, win for everyone!

Ditto.... Dawn

Ask your pedi. Only he/she knows what's best and what's needed for your baby.

Vitamin D3 derived from cholecalciferol (plants) is all natural. Hit up your local health food store.

Here's some excellent dosage info: http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/vitamin-d/NS_patient-vit...

I remember reading that 15 min per day in the sunshine without any sunscreen is all we need to produce adequate vitamin D for our needs.
That would be whole body.
Which is why it's so easy in swimsuit season and then you need sunscreen to keep from over doing it.
In the winter, face and hands can get some sun but probably it's not enough surface area for adequate sun exposure.
When we were little, our Mom gave us cod liver oil fall through spring.

Indirect sunlight through a window, so long as it's not tinted, does work.
When my son was born it was super sold and raining. We didn't go out a whole lot in those first few weeks because I was physically beat.
My son got mild jaundise. We were able to put him in just his diaper lying in front of the window and he got enough sunlight to clear it up without further intervention.

Here is an excellent Dr mercola link about the safest way to get the sun exposure for enabling the body to naturally produce vitamin D http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2012/0.... If you live north, in winter you really can't make vitamin D --due to the low angle of the sun the atmosphere filters (blocks) the UV-B rays that are required for the body to produce Vitamin D (as do windows so you should not get sun exposure through windows, either as you will only get the harmful UV-A rays). The article includes a link to calculate time of day that the sun is above a 50 degree angle where UV-B rays can penetrate to induce vitamin D production (the time table uses your lattitude and longitude plugged into the US Naval Observatory Azimuth tabl where this link is provided). Where I live, I can't get these rays for several months through the winter so we all take Vitacost's D3 drops frequently. In 2 years, I have boosted my severly low levels of 22 ug/ml up to the very low end of normal, 32 ug/ml. Optimum is 80ug/ml. Clearly the supplements help but maybe I need to take more often! Do to work, it is hard for me to get sun exposure even in the summer when the time window of UV-B ray opportunity is much wider.

As a breastfeeding mom, you should be getting atleast 5000 IUs of vitamin D3 a day. You wont have to give any to your child because he/she will be getting it from you. Here is a link on what the recommended doses are. Scroll to the very bottom.

http://drtenpenny.com/vitamin-d-and-you/

Unless you have a medical problem where you need to supplement your vitamin D you don't need a supplement. We get it from a minimal exposure to the sun.

Vitamin D is actually a hormone that your body produces when it's exposed to sunlight. There are foods you can eat to make sure you get enough though.

Salmon, Tuna, Sole or Flounder, full vitamin D milk that you drink, Cereals like Cheerio's that your age child could be eating by hand, Pork, Eggs, Mushrooms, Beef Liver, and Ricotta Cheese (often found in Lasagna).

It adds up through out the day plus if you just eat a varied diet of healthy foods. The salmon alone is enough to fill a daily need plus more. Half a fillet of salmon is over twice what you need to take in per day.

Supplements are not natural and even though they are probably not harmful they are not the best, natural is best. Sit in a window for a little each day then eat some vitamin D foods to make sure your infant is getting all she needs.

you can buy special light bulbs that mimic the sun and provide Vitamin D. Sometimes it doesn't matter how much sun you get, sometimes people just don't absorb it through their skin. I am one of those people, even with being in the sun for literally hours a day with no sun screen I was still really low if not on supplements. And I do get literally sick if I don't take my daily vitamin D.

BUT honestly as a mom that breastfed I think they do get enough from the mom's milk. I mean that stuff is amazing, why would it leave Vitamin D out? It can cure pink eye and alters to the individual, I just don't believe it doesn't give the baby enough of D vitamin. And what IS enough? How do they know for infants? So, imo, just don't worry about it, take her for a walk now and then and make sure her pretty little face can see the sun.

I would talk to the ped first and then look into supplements. If you have always been giving it with the ped's okay, then I would look to maybe get it online. A friend's cousin was taking Vitamin D and giving it to her kids. She doubled her own and one of her kids. She could not figure out why the 2 were sick. They went to the doc who ran tests. She was getting too much. There is such a thing as too much of a good thing. Her sister had talked to her own doc about taking supplements and was glad she did. She was about to take a lot more than needed.