Abstract

Background: Prenatal maternal nutrition and nutrition in the first 1000 days of a child’s life play an important role in the child’s neurological and cognitive development. Objective: To evaluate the effectiveness of micronutrients supplementation for women in pre-pregnancy and during pregnancy on cognitive development of children in communes of 4 districts of Thai Nguyen province from 2013 to 2016. Methods: Prospective cohort studies, follow-up studies children were born whose mothers who participate in clinical trials randomized double-blind, hypothesis testing, intervention additional multi-micronutrient (MM) weekly in the time before pregnancy combined with daily iron + acid folic supplement (IFA) during pregnancy is better (or not) compared to interventions with only pure IFA or acid folic (FA) supplements before pregnancy and IFA during pregnancy for the physical-spiritual development of their children later. Bayley scale III used to assess cognitive development at 12 and 24 months. Results: The cognitive development scores of children were similar to the standard in all three groups whose mothers were supplemented with folic acid, iron + folic acid, and multi-micronutrients before pregnancy. The cognitive scores of children whose mothers were supplemented with multi-micronutrients were better than those of children whose mothers were supplemented with folic acid and iron + folic acid before pregnancy at both time points, the difference was statistically significant. The rate of high-level cognitive development of children whose mothers were supplemented with multi-micronutrients before pregnancy was also better than that of the other groups at 24 months. Conclusions: Multi-micronutrient supplementation for the pre-pregnancy mothers has direct and indirect effects on the physical-spiritual development of children in the future.