What are the benefits of folic acid before and during pregnancy?
NICE commissioned a guideline on Antenatal care (1), published in October 2003. This has a section on nutritional supplementation. Neural tube defects, which comprise open spina bifida, anencephaly and encephalocele, affect1.5/1000 pregnancies in the UK. These congenital malformations, which arise from neural tube defects, are preventable through public health measures. The effect of increased consumption of multivitamins or folic acid consumption before conception on the prevalence of neural tube defects was assessed in a systematic review of four RCTs of 6425 women. In all the RCTs, folic acid was taken before conception and up to 612 weeks of gestation. This periconceptional folate supplementation was found to substantially reduce the prevalence of neural tube defects (relative risk 0.28, 95% CI 0.13 to 0.58). There was a reduction both where the mother had not had a previously affected fetus or infant (relative risk 0.07, 95% CI 0.00 to 1.32) and when the mother had given birth to
NICE commissioned a guideline on Antenatal care (1), published in October 2003. This has a section on nutritional supplementation. _Neural tube defects, which comprise open spina bifida, anencephaly and encephalocele, affect1.5/1000 pregnancies in the UK. These congenital malformations, which arise from neural tube defects, are preventable through public health measures. The effect of increased consumption of multivitamins or folic acid consumption before conception on the prevalence of neural tube defects was assessed in a systematic review of four RCTs of 6425 women. In all the RCTs, folic acid was taken before conception and up to 6_12 weeks of gestation. This periconceptional folate supplementation was found to substantially reduce the prevalence of neural tube defects (relative risk 0.28, 95% CI 0.13 to 0.58). There was a reduction both where the mother had not had a previously affected fetus or infant (relative risk 0.07, 95% CI 0.00 to 1.32) and when the mother had given birth t