Folic Acid and Birth Defects For at least three decades
researchers have suggested that low folic acid intake during
pregnancy is related to birth defects such as spina bifida and
anencephaly. Two more recent studies, one in Hungary and another
in England, are even more convincing that supplementing a
pregnant woman's diet with this B vitamin dramatically decreases
her baby's chance of birth defects. Hungarian researchers worked
with almost 5000 pregnant women. Every day half of the women
received a multi vitamin and mineral tablet containing 800
micrograms of folic acid. The rest took a tablet with a minimum
of nutrients and no folic acid. All the women took their tablets
one month before conception and continued through their first
trimester. The folic acid group had 40 percent less birth
defects than the women given none of this vitamin and none of
their babies with neural tube problems. There were six cases of
neural tube defects among the newborns whose mothers who didn't
take folic acid (13). When Engli