Endocrine Abstracts

Objective: Diet and nutritional status during pregnancy are critical for the health of both mothers and the neonates. Women in twin pregnancies have higher metabolic needs compared to women in single pregnancies and it can be expected that they have higher risk of key vitamins and micronutrients deficiencies. However, very scarce data are currently available on this topic.

Aim of the study and method: The main aim is to analyze the nutritional status of women in twin pregnancies in terms of selected vitamins and microelements: iodine, vitamin D, calcium, magnesium, iron, folic acid and vitamin B12. It will be achieved through analysis of the nutritional status of the mentioned nutrients in 100 women with twin pregnancies after 22 weeks of pregnancy. A comparison with a control group of women in single pregnancies is also planned.

Results: Until the submission of this abstract (January 2022) 69 women in twin pregnancies were recruited. The median age in this group was 34 years (interquartile range [IQR] 31-36), whereas median gestational age was 30.4 weeks (IQR 25-33.3). 52.2% women were in dichorionic diamniotic, 43.5% in monochorionic diamniotic and 4.3% in monochorionic monoamniotic pregnancies. Deficiency of at least one of the tested micronutrients or vitamins occurred in 72.5% of the respondents. Iron deficiency was the most common and affected 55.1% of the examined patients. The second most common was vitamin D deficiency, which concerned 44.4% of the group. Vitamin B12 deficiency turned out to be the third most common and it was found in 8.7% of women. Almost 1 in 4 patients had excess level of folic acid. Moreover, in 5.8% of patients the concentration of 25-hydroxyvitamin D was increased. In terms of the remaining tested vitamins and microelements, no laboratory features of significant excess or shortage were found.

Conclusions: Basing on the preliminary results, it can be concluded that women in twin pregnancies may constitute a high-risk group for the deficiencies of iron, vitamin D and vitamin B12 deficiency.