Adequate nutritional habits during periconceptional period is proven to be of crucial importance for optimal pregnancy outcomes. Diet, particularly vitamin deficiency often increases children's risk of congenital abnormalities. Hungarian interventional trials already proved the efficiency of folic acid in preventing neural tube defects, one of the most common and severe malformation. Folic acid was demonstrated to prevent 90 % of neural tube defects in the form of multivitamins, and 70 % prevention of the malformation when applied alone during the periconceptional period. The application of folic acid in the same manner was able to prevent a large proportion of congenital cardiovascular abnormalities as well. The possible uses of periconceptional folic acid supplementation would be the followings: (i) dietary intake; (ii) periconceptional medication; (iii) flour fortification; (iv) combination of oral contraceptives with 6S-5-methyltetrahydrofolate. Recently the use of folic acid has been extended to late-pregnancy, particularly to the third trimester as well, in which case it has been shown to decrease the rate of preterm births. In summary, folic acid applied before and during pregnancy may significantly contribute to the reduction of the occurrence of factors influencing offsprings morbidity and mortality, thus playing important role in children's long-term health as well.
Journal of International Society of Antioxidants in Nutrition & Health, Vol 3, No 1 (2016): Special Volume of ISANH Conference/Congress