Iron is an important factor in brain development during embryonic life, and new research at Rochester Medical Center shows that iron deficiency may delay the development of the auditory nervous system in premature infants. This delay affects the infant’s vocalization process – a key factor in early childhood language function. The study evaluated 80 children older than 18 months of age, measuring the amount of iron in their cord blood and applying a non-invasive tool, the Auditory Brainstem Arousal Response (ABR), to test the maturation of the auditory nervous system in the newborn brain. The study showed that infants with low iron levels in cord blood had abnormal maturation of the auditory system of the brain compared to children with normal cord blood iron levels. “Iron-deficient infants born prematurely had poorer sound transmission through the brain’s immature auditory pathways than did infants with normal iron levels.” Sanjiv Amin, M.D., professor of pediatrics at Rochester Medical Center, whose abstract was presented at the May 4 Baltimore Pediatric Academic Conference, said, “We hypothesized that if the auditory nervous system is affected during development, then other parts of the brain would also be affected in an iron-deficient environment. ” As many as 20-30 percent of pregnant women of low socio-economic status are iron deficient, and iron deficiency in pregnant women can lead to anemia so that the red blood cells in the blood do not have sufficient oxygen-carrying capacity. Anemia can lead to a range of problems during pregnancy including exhaustion, preterm delivery and low birth weight of the baby. But internists don’t know that iron deficiency can lead to delayed fetal auditory nerve development, which can eventually lead to speech problems. “We are concerned about these results because they could potentially affect language development,” Amin said, “and we need to do more in-depth studies to better clarify what developmental delay means, but the current findings at least allow us to draw the line at monitoring the results of iron levels in the blood of pregnant women demarcation.”