It’s National Folic Acid Awareness Week. Yes, folic acid is special enough to get its very own week! Do you know why?
If you get enough of the B vitamin folic acid before and during pregnancy, you can reduce the risk of some serious birth defects like spina bifida or anencephaly. Even if you don’t plan on becoming pregnant, the CDC urges you to get your folic acid fix anyway. Accidents happen. In fact, half of all pregnancies are unplanned!
To prevent neural tube defects caused by incomplete development of the brain and spinal cord, women of childbearing age should consume 0.4 mg or 400 micrograms of folic acid each day as recommended by the CDC. Women who get at least 400 mcg of folic acid daily will reduce the risk of a pregnancy affected by a neural tube by up to 70%.
To be helpful, folic acid must be taken at least one month before pregnancy, but you should consider beginning even earlier. One reason experts suggest taking folic acid early is that birth defects of the spine and brain occur during the first few weeks of pregnancy — usually before a woman knows she’s pregnant.
You probably don’t get enough folic acid in the everyday diet. There are a couple of ways to make sure you’re getting the recommended amount. You can take a multivitamin or a supplement with folic acid, but ensure that it has 400 mcg of folic acid. The typical multivitamin sold in the US has that amount. Getting your folic acid may even be as simple as eating a bowl of the right cereal. Check your cereal’s nutrition label to make sure it has 100% of the recommended amount of folic acid.
Do you know if you get the recommended amount of folic acid each day?
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Post from: Blisstree