Investigation of iodine in infant starting, special and follow-on formulae

Newborn babies are entirely dependent on mother’s milk and in special cases on infant starting, follow-on and special formulae as their only iodine source. In the present work, we investigated the iodine content of different infant formulae and examined the improvements made in the last decade. Radiochemical neutron activation analysis was employed to determine the content of iodine in the selected samples. We compared the values obtained with the declared values and all investigated infant formulae, with the exception of three, showed insufficient agreement with the declared values. In the case of special formulae, only one of five investigated products was in good agreement with the declared value. The values of iodine obtained for eighteen different infant formulae ranged from 0.18 to 1.82 μg/g, which converted to daily intake by considering the accepted consumption of milk for infants ranged from 20 to 220 μg/day. Calculated from our results, the range of iodine contents for starting formulae, prepared according to the producer’s recipe, was from 5.9 to 23.2 μg/100 kcal, for special formulae from 3.7 to 35.4 μg/100 kcal, and for follow-on formulae from 10.7 to 25.6 μg/100 kcal. There is still a great need for stricter quality control of the iodine content in infant formulae.