Relationship between Urine Iodine Levels with the Kind of Feeding among Infants referring Health Centers, Urmia, 1997.

Abstract

Abstract: Introduction & Methods: This study is a cross-sectional comparative descriptive study which has been carried out in order to investigate the Urine Iodine Levels in relation to milk diet of the infants which referred to the Urmia Health & Treatment Centers in 1997. It consists of one general goal and two special objectives. In this research, 391 infants were chosen on the base of random quota sampling. Data was collected by urine iodine measurement test using digestion method and a instructed interview questionnaire which included two main parts; the first part was related to demographic and familial information and the second one was about the infants nutrition. For achieving the goals of this research, the descriptive and inferential statistics were used. The results were shown in 36 tables and 3 charts. Results: Based on the results of this study, it was seen that the urine concentrations of iodine in the majority of cases (80.8%) were >10 ug/dl with mean > 25.8. Also, the urine Iodine levels in the majority of infants fed breast milk (84.7%), combination of other milks (84.3%), formula (83.3%) and cow milk (70.8%) were >10 ug/dl. Therefore, by using the mean of urine iodine concentration, as the marker of iodine status, corresponding values of those groups (>30.1, .26.4, >26.3 and >20.4, accordingly) were higher than the known cutoff point (10uy/dl), and the infants were not at risk for iodine deficiency disorders. In spite of the fact that the iodine status of the groups were favorable, the amount of iodine concentrations were significantly different among them, so the infants fed breast milk had taken the most iodine (mean>30.1) and the ones fed cow milk had the least (mean>20.4). Conclusion: At the end, the researcher, based on the results of this study, has presented some suggestions for application of the findings and performing further studies.