Abstract
Referring to the historical background of the policies for prevention of rickets in Great Britain and U. S. A. etc., we proposed the following new policies for prevention of rickets in Japan. 1) The daily prophylactic requirement of vitamin D for infants and children should be of the order of 400 to 800IU. 2) Regular vitamin D supplements should be provided to breast-fed infants. 3) In order to avoid complexity of instruction for the mothers concerning regular supply of vitamin D and iatrogenic rickets in low-birth-infants due to small amount of formula ingested, resulting in low daily vitamin D intake regular vitamin D supplements should be recommended even for the infants bottle-fed or mixed with the vitamin D fortified milk. 4) The vitamin D levels of fortification in dried milk should be reduced to 266-300IU per 100g (40-45IU per 100ml) from 500-600IU per 100g of present milk preparations.
