Does not eat folic acid during pregnancy affect your baby's health?

Folic acid is very important for the development of the nervous system of the fetus. The role of taking folic acid before pregnancy is mainly to prevent fetal neural tube malformations and reduce the risk of other birth defects in the baby. If a pregnant woman is deficient in folate, pregnancy hypertension, preeclampsia, recurrent miscarriage, and fetal cessation may occur. If the fetus has folate deficiency, it may cause some diseases, such as: neural tube defects, cleft lip and palate, congenital heart disease, Down syndrome, etc.

Asking women who are trying to conceive to supplement folic acid is mainly based on this consideration:

1. Folic acid supplementation helps prevent fetal congenital malformations, so that the folic acid in the female body is maintained at a certain level to ensure that there is a better folic acid nutrition environment in the early embryo.

2. Folic acid is relatively high in food, mainly dark green leafy vegetables. In the modern diet, it is more difficult to ensure the intake of vegetables, especially during cooking, vitamins are easily lost.

3. The consequences of folic acid loss are more serious and difficult to make up.

So does not eat folic acid necessarily cause fetal malformations?

This is not necessarily true, mainly depending on the mother's folic acid reserves. If pregnant women usually pay more attention to the intake of vegetables, the possibility of fetal health is of course relatively small. If the usual partial diet is more serious, then after the discovery of pregnancy, you should continue to supplement folic acid immediately.

Not eating folic acid before pregnancy does not necessarily affect the health of the baby, and the baby is also likely to be healthy without neurological defects. However, if the pregnant woman has spina bifida disease or the fetus she has been pregnant with has neural tube malformations, it is necessary to take folic acid under the guidance of a doctor to reduce the chance of fetal disease.