Folic Acid Project
For over 20 years, Baby Your Baby has encouraged women to adopt healthy habits in order to increase their chances of having healthy babies. A new project focusing on one of those healthy habits is taking place at Utah's WIC clinics and it's helping new mothers make an important change.
Miriam Alegria welcomed baby Alexander into her life just three weeks ago. So she's been working with the professionals at one of the Salt Lake Valley WIC offices to keep her family on the right track when it comes to nutrition and health.
Today Paola Velez - a Registered Dietician - is talking to Miriam about the importance of taking folic acid every day.
“We stress a lot that they take it before they are pregnant, even if they are not planning to be pregnant, because about half of all pregnancies in this country are unplanned.”
Health professionals encourage 'all' women in their childbearing years to take four-hundred micro-grams of folic acid every day, whether or not they are planning on becoming pregnant.
Neural tube birth defects (NTDs) like Spina Bifida and Anencephaly usually occur in the earliest stages of pregnancy - between 15 and 30 days after conception - often before a woman knows she is pregnant. It is during this time that initial development of the spinal cord and brain is taking place.
(Visit Utah Birth Defects Network)
Because NTDs are more likely to occur in a second or third pregnancy, the counselors are targeting moms like Miriam, who are ready to make healthy changes.
“With the moms who come in post partum, with their babies, we especially focus on them and talk about folic acid and we actually give them a multivitamin that they can take home,” says Velez.
Project organizers hope that by physically putting vitamins in the hands of women, they will inspire a healthy habit and lower the rising rate of neural tube birth defects in Utah - a rate that has been steadily on the increase since 1999.
“We know that in the United States there are about 3000 births that are affected by neural tube defects, and this is caused by a deficiency in folic acid,” says Velez. “And lots of these - up to 70 percent - could be prevented if the mom was taking either a supplement or eating a lot of food with folate in it.”
Foods that have naturally high levels of folate include dark leafy greens - like spinach; vegetables like broccoli and asparagus; and fruits like oranges. Another good source of folate can be found in enriched, ready-to-eat cereals. Velez says be sure to check the nutrition labels to see that it contains 100 percent of the daily requirement for folic acid – 400 mcg.
Velez knows that she and her fellow dieticians can only do so much. So she enlists the women she sees each day to help spread the message.
“I tell them this is really important, please talk to your moms, your friends, your sisters, any other women that they know that are in the childbearing age and just encourage them to talk about it. A lot of times they won't listen to us as much as they will listen to their friends.”
Project organizers hope to hand out fourteen-thousand bottles of multi-vitamins to WIC mothers over the next few months.
