Pregnant women in Austria commonly suffer from an iodine deficiency. This may have a negative impact on the development of their unborn child's brain. These are the key findings of a joint study by the Endocrinology and Metabolism Unit at the University Department of Internal Medicine III together with the University Department of Gynaecology at the MedUni Vienna and AGES, which have now been published in the European Journal of Clinical Nutrition.

This lack of iodine can also occur in Austrian women after they have started taking the iodine preparations prescribed by their doctors during pregnancy. "This leads to the conclusion that women need to take higher quantities of iodine if they are planning to become pregnant," say the study authors Heidelinde Lindorfer and Alois Gessl from the University Department of Internal Medicine III at the MedUni Vienna. "Once they are pregnant, it is too late. By this point, iodine stores are clearly so empty that they cannot be adequately topped up during pregnancy due to the approximately 50 per cent higher demand for iodine."

"According to the WHO, every pregnant woman should take around 250 micrograms of iodine a day, and this should be continued until she stops breast feeding," say the study authors.

Interestingly, urine measurements using mass spectrometry revealed higher concentrations of iodine in women with a migration background - regardless of the week of pregnancy and the presence of gestational diabetes.