Maternal selenium intake and status during pregnancy in relation to pregnancy, neonatal and child outcomes

Research Project, 2017 – 2020

The aim is to examine the association between maternal dietary intake of selenium and maternal serum levels of selenium at mid-pregnancy and preterm delivery, birth weight, preeclampsia, neonatal outcomes, child growth and child neurocognitive development.

The study will be performed in the Norwegian Mother and Child Cohort Study (MoBa), including >107 000 families. Selenium intake was calculated with food-frequency questionnaire distributed to all mothers at pregnancy week 17-22. Genetic data is available for 11 000 of the women in the cohort and serum selenium levels are available for 2982 of the women.

The goal with the project is to produce evidence based knowledge about how dietary intake of selenium influence the outcome of the pregnancy and the health of the child. This project will reveal if selenium can be used as a preventive strategy to decrease the risk for preterm delivery, low birth weight and preeclampsia and if intake of selenium can increase optimal foetal growth, neonatal health, neurocognitive development or growth of the child.