How Folate Can Help Prevent Birth Defects
How Folate Can Help Prevent Birth Defects by Paula Kurtzweil If you plan to have children some day, here's important information for the future mother-to-be: Think folate now. Folate is a B vitamin found in a variety of foods and added to many vitamin and mineral supplements as folic acid, a synthetic form of folate. Folate is needed both before and in the first weeks of pregnancy and can help reduce the risk of certain serious and common birth defects called neural tube defects, which affect the brain and spinal cord. The tricky part is that neural tube defects can occur in an embryo before a woman realizes she's pregnant. That's why it's important for all women of childbearing age (15 to 45) to include folate in their diets: If they get pregnant, it reduces the chance of the baby having a birth defect of the brain or spinal cord. "Adequate folate should be eaten daily and throughout the childbearing years," said Elizabeth Yetley, Ph.D., a registered dietiti...