All pregnant women and those trying to conceive are advised to take prenatal vitamins containing folic acid. While the link between folic acid and pregnancy for the prevention of spinal bifida has been well documented, folic acid can prevent other medical problems for the baby as well when taken during pregnancy.
Folic Acid During Pregnancy Prevents Spinal Bifida
Taking 400 mcg of folic acid a day will reduce the risk of spinal bifida, the most common permanently disabling birth defect, by 70 percent, according to the American Spinal Bifida Association. Most prenatal vitamins contain at least 800 mcg of folic acid. Every woman, regardless of age or genetics, is at equal risk of having a baby born with spinal bifida, a neural tube defect that happens in the first month of pregnancy when the spinal column doesn’t close completely.
Women must make sure that they are receiving enough folic acid before they even become pregnant because the fetus’ neural tube closes about one week after the first missed menstrual period.
Reduces Chance of Childhood Cancers
Taking a prenatal vitamin with folic acid reduces the risk of three common childhood cancers, according to a research report released in 2007 from Toronto’s Hospital for Sick Children. The research states that prenatal vitamins are associated with a 47 percent decrease in the occurrence of neuroblastoma (a cancer of specialized nerve cells which is the most common type of cancer in infants), a 39 percent decrease in childhood leukemia, and a 27 percent decrease in childhood brain tumors.
Decreases Chance of Congenital Heart Defects
Researchers from McGill University in Montreal released a report in May 2009 showing that folic acid decreases the incidence of congenital heart defects by more than 6 percent. Congenital cardiovascular defects happen in about 1 percent of all live births, when the heart or blood vessels near the heart do not develop normally, sometimes caused by a viral infection or hereditary factors.
Reduces Chance of a Cleft Lip
In January 2007, researchers at the U.S. National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS) reported that taking folic acid reduced a baby’s risk of developing an isolated cleft lip (with or without cleft palate) by one-third. A cleft lip is a birth defect that occurs between weeks six and twelve of pregnancy when parts of the lips and roof of the mouth (palate) don’t grow together. Because the lips and the palate develop separately, it’s possible to have either a cleft lip, cleft palate, or both.
What to Avoid When Taking Folic Acid
There are two concerns to know about folic acid. First of all, women must make sure that they are not taking any medications that are known to prevent folic acid from working in the body. An October 2009 report from researchers at the Ben-Gurion University of Negev in Israel, says that taking any of the following drugs in the first trimester of pregnancy more than doubles the risk of congenital malformations in the fetus: trimethoprim, sulfasalazine, methotrexate, carbamazepine, phenytoin, lamotrigine, primidone, valproic acid, phenobarbital and cholestyramine. Women should consult their physicians first before discontinuing these medications.
Pregnant women should also avoid green tea for this same reason. A 2005 study by researchers at the University of Murcia in Spain found that there is an enzyme in green tea that absorbs folic acid, preventing it from going to the fetus. The report found that women who drank more than three cups of green tea a day were almost three times as likely to give birth to a child with spinal bifida as non tea drinkers. As a result, researchers felt green tea should be avoided during pregnancy and for several months prior to conception.
New Concerns About Taking Folic Acid in the Third Trimester
There are also issues with taking folic acid in the third trimester. A 2009 study by researchers from the University of Adelaide in Australia have identified a link between folic acid supplements taken in late pregnancy and allergic asthma in children aged between three and five years. Eleven percent of children whose mothers took the required dosage of folic acid late in pregnancy developed asthma. There was no evidence to suggest that there were adverse effects if folic acid was taken early in pregnancy.
It is obvious that taking folic acid prior to conception and early in pregnancy is very important for baby's overall health, from lowering the risk of the most common childhood cancers to preventing spinal bifida to reducing the chance of congenital heart defects.
Gail Oliver - Gail is an author, writer and researcher. She has been quoted in magazines as diverse as Cosmopolitan and Maclean's. Gail writes on a ...
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