Multivitamins Urged for All Pregnant Women in Developing Countries (2/2)

The scientists compared the findings with results from a group of 4000 women who did not receive the vitamins. A report by the scientists, from the United States and Tanzania, appeared in the New England Journal of Medicine. Wafaie Fawzi of the Harvard University School of Public Health led the study.

None of the women in the study had H.I.V., the virus that causes AIDS. The scientists reported earlier that daily multivitamins were a low-cost way to reduce fetal deaths in pregnant women infected with H.I.V.

The earlier work in Tanzania also found improvement in the mothers in their number of blood cells known as lymphocytes. Lymphocytes increase the body's immunity against infection.

The new study in pregnant women who were not infected with the AIDS virus found that multivitamins reduced the risk of low birth weight. Just under 8% of the babies born to women who took the multivitamins weighed less than 2500 grams. The rate was almost nine and one-half percent in the group of women who received a placebo, an inactive pill, instead of the vitamins.