Amniotic fluid is the immediate environment of the fetus and an extension of the fetal extracellular space during the first half of pregnancy [1, 12]. We have recently published the ranges of nutrient concentrations in amniotic fluid of women with normal and neural-tube defect pregnancies [26]. Although nutrient concentrations in amniotic fluid may not always represent the nutriture of the fetus, nutrient determinations of both amniotic fluid and maternal blood might provide a better picture of fetal nutriture than biochemical nutritional assessment using maternal blood alone. However, a few studies examined the relationship between amniotic fluid and maternal blood nutrient levels during pregnancy, hence sufficient information is not available [21, 25, 28], Therefore, we untertook this study to determine nutrient levels in amniotic fluid and blood samples which were obtained simultaneously from a total of 76 pregnant women at around 17 weeks gestation. The nutrients determined included folate, vitamin B-12, zinc, copper and iron. It is well recognized that the optimal nurtritional status of these nutrients in pregnant women is extremely important for normal fetal growth and development as well as for maternal health [4, 7, 9, 14, 19, 24]. The values reported here may be used as a reference for the future investigation of fetal and maternal nutrition during pregnancy.