Saturday, November 9, 2013

Folic Acid Reduces Risk Of Premature Births


There’s now an easy way to reduce the risk of premature births. Taking folic acid supplements for a year before conception has been shown to reduce the risk of premature births by 50% to 70%.

Researchers reported their nearly 35,000 women cohort study’s findings in the journal PLoS Medicine. Since premature births account for 12% of all deliveries in the US and are associated with vision impairment, mental retardation, and cerebral palsy in children, as well as diabetes and cardiovascular disease in adults, anything that can be done to reduce these numbers is a great service to parents and their children, as well as society in general.The key to the success of this approach is for the prospective mother to begin taking folic acid supplements a year before conception.     

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