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Folic Acid During Preconception

A Vital Role in Healthy Pregnancies

By Jessica Williams

A healthy diet rich in vitamins and minerals is very important if you want to start your pregnancy right. In addition to eating right, there is one vitamin that is crucial as you try to conceive: folic acid. This little vitamin is so important that 15 of the nation's leading organizations have joined together under the March of Dimes to help spread awareness to women who could become pregnant. Folic acid reduces the risk of having a child with a neural tube defects (NTDs) like anencephaly and spina bifida – the two main forms of NTDs – when 400 micrograms are taken every day.

Folic Acid is a B vitamin and is found in different foods (the natural form is called folate) and in supplements. Researchers suspected that a good diet played a role in preventing defects in babies as early as the 1950s, but it wasn't until the early 1990s that compelling research became available about folic acid's role in preventing NTDs. Now the Center for Disease Control (CDC), Food and Drug Administration (FDA), American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) and many other organizations are spreading the message that folic acid is vital to women who are trying to conceive.

Want to see more?

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• Safeguard Your Fertility: Six Simple Steps
• Before Baby: Choosing Breastfeeding Before You Conceive
• Talk about it!