Cebu Province - Iron and folic acid in pregnancy are important. Taking a prenatal vitamin of folic acid before and during pregnancy can help prevent birth defects in your baby's brain and spinal cord. It occurs within 3-4 weeks. So, it's important to have folate in your system during those early stages when your baby's brain and spinal cord are developing.

A folic acid is a man-made form of a B vitamin called folate. Folate plays an important role in the production of red blood cells and helps your baby's neural tube develop into its brain and spinal cord. Folate is found naturally in dark green vegetables and citrus fruits.

Foods that can help you get more folic acid in your diet include beef liver, lentils, spinach, broccoli, oranges, bananas, and egg (one hardboiled egg contains 22mcg of folate). While eggs are generally considered healthy, yolks are high in cholesterol. If you have high cholesterol or heart disease, or you’re trying to watch your cholesterol intake, you may want to limit the number of eggs you eat per week.

Without enough folic acid in your body, your baby's neural tube may not close correctly and they could develop health problems called neural tube defects. These include spina bifida, and incomplete development of the spinal cord or the vertebrae. Anencephaly: incomplete development of major parts of the brain.

Babies with anencephaly usually do not live long, and those with spina bifida may be permanently disabled. These are scary problems, to say the least. But the good news is that getting enough folic acid may protect your baby from neural tube defects.

Appropriate nutritional knowledge, the benefits of a healthy diet, and educating mothers before and during pregnancy to improve their nutritional practices would help reduce the risk of iron deficiency and anemia and improve gestational outcomes. // ND II Abigail Q. Ambe, RND