They Say: Prenatal Folic Acid Not So Good After All

JeanneSager — Wed, 03 Dec 2008 17:57:00 GMT

Am I the only one who is starting to feel like scientists flip a coin every day to decide what's good for our kids? The latest flip flop hits those prenatal ~~horse pills~~ vitamins every mother tries to force down throughout her pregnancy.

Turns out that folic acid we always thought was so necessary for their development? This week, they're saying we probably should hold off about three months. Stay tuned (these things are subject to change).

The study out of Norway has some heft to it. Researchers followed thirty-two thousand kids over a period of three years and found moms who took folic acid during the first three months of gestation were more likely to have a baby with respiratory issues all the way up to the eighteen-month mark. The kids were also twenty-four percent more likely to land in the hospital because of their wheezing.

Over the years, folic acid intake by pregnant moms has been liked to everything from a decrease in the incidence of spina bifida to a possible decrease in cancer in kids. I've known moms who started taking prenatal vites months before they even began TRYING for a baby because they wanted to have a healthy folic acid build-up in the body. And I'd imagine you'd be hard-pressed these days to find a prenatal vitamin that DOESN'T have folic acid built in (thank you March of Dimes).

So what's a mom to do? Would you say the benefits outweigh the risks? Or should we just stay tuned for the other flip flop to drop?

Image: MLive

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Karen Murphy — Thu, 22 Feb 2007 21:12:00 GMT

Is it really this easy?? Apparently it is. A new Canadian study strongly suggests that the three most common and very devastating childhood cancers, leukemia, neuroblastoma, and brain tumors, can be reduced by up to almost 47% by the simple and relatively inexpensive action of the mother taking prenatal vitamins before and during the first three months of pregnancy. Although the study seems somewhat suspicious (it was funded in part by a prenatal vitamin manufacturer), I'm inclined to go with this one.

Although the results of the study did not define which element of the prenatal vitamins was the cause of the decrease in cancer incidence, it's suggested that it may be the folic acid, already known to help prevent neural-tube defects (spina bifida, etc.). Whatever the cause, it seems that there's no downside to taking prenatal vitamins other than choking down those wretched ginormous horse pills every day. Which seems a small price to pay for the very real possibility that it might prevent cancer or devastating disease in your unborn child.

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