Iron, folic acid and zinc intakes and status of low socio-economic pregnant and lactating Amazonian women.

Dietary intakes were obtained by 24-h recall from 25 women in the first and third trimesters of pregnancy and 25 women in the first 3 months of lactation from eight towns in the Amazon valley. No consistent differences were found between the towns, so the results have been analysed together. Intakes of iron, free and total folate and zinc were nearly all very low compared with current recommendations. Despite their low intakes, the majority of the women had acceptable values of haemoglobin, haematocrit and MCHC. Serum folate concentrations were almost all extremely low (less than 2.5 ng/ml). The levels of RBC folate were also low, but in general not as severely so as those for serum folate. Serum zinc concentrations ranged from 0.2 to 0.7 microgram/ml, whereas the lower limit of acceptability has been put by various authors as 0.59-0.69 microgram/ml according to the stage of pregnancy. In breast milk, total folate in the majority of women ranged from 25 to 50 ng/ml, the greater part of it being in the free form. Zinc levels in breast milk were within the range 0-2 microgram/ml.