Abnormalities of hair zinc concentration in mothers of newborn infants with spina bifida.

Hair zinc concentration was measured in centimeter sections of hair strands obtained from 17 mothers after delivery of newborn infants with spina bifida cystica. Thirty unselected healthy mothers and their normal newborn infants served as the controls. In the mothers of the diagnosis group, mean hair zinc concentration (216.2 microgram/g; SD = 43.2) was significntly higher than in the controls (181.6 microgram/g; SD = 31.4); it increased during pregnancy, whereas it decreased in the controls during the same time, and it was positively correlated to the hair zinc concentration of the newborn infants, while no such correlation could be detected in the controls. In the diagnosis group, mean birth weight (2808 g; SD = 382) and length (48.5 cm; SD = 2.3) of the term infants were significantly lower than in the control group (3310 g; SD = 382, and 51.2 cm; SD = 1.9, respectively). It is speculated that the differences in the zinc and growth parameters between the diagnosis and control group indicate an abnormality of zinc availability or metabolism in the mothers of infants with spina bifida.