(HealthNewsDigest.com) – This study of women enrolled in the Boston Birth Cohort from 1999 to 2014 found that fewer than 5 percent of mothers enrolled in the study started folic acid supplements before pregnancy, and approximately one-third of mothers had either too low or too high plasma folate levels, which may have important health consequences on both the mother and the child. |
Researchers also found the percentage of mothers taking folic acid supplementation almost daily during preconception and the first, second and third trimesters were 4.3 percent, 55.9 percent, 59.4 percent and 58 percent, respectively. Most striking, researchers observed a wide range of maternal plasma folate concentrations, with approximately 11 percent insufficient and 23 percent elevated.
[Author Contact: Tina L. Cheng, MD, MPH, Charlotte Bloomberg Children’s Center, Baltimore, MD. “Folate Nutrition Status in Mothers of the Boston Birth Cohort, a Sample of US Urban Low-Income Population.”].