How much do you know about how to accurately supplement folic acid during pregnancy preparation?

Folic acid is a water-soluble B vitamin that plays an important role in fetal development.

Folic acid deficiency during pregnancy can cause fetal neural tube defects, congenital heart disease, etc., and also increase the risk of miscarriage, premature birth, stillbirth, megaloblastic anemia, preeclampsia and other diseases.

Who needs to supplement folic acid? How to supplement folic acid scientifically?

Li Qiao, a contracted expert in the medical field, said that women planning to become pregnant should start taking folic acid supplements every day three months before the start of their pregnancy and continue taking them throughout the pregnancy, even during breastfeeding.

1. Women who are preparing for pregnancy or in early pregnancy

Every woman who is planning to become pregnant or in early pregnancy should see a doctor and undergo necessary physical examinations and laboratory tests. The doctor will give personalized folic acid supplementation recommendations based on actual conditions.

For women without high-risk factors, it is recommended that they take folic acid supplements of 0.4 mg/d or 0.8 mg/d starting from the time of possible pregnancy or at least 3 months before pregnancy until the 3rd month of pregnancy.

Women who consume little fresh vegetables and fruits and are preparing for pregnancy in a short time can increase the supplement dosage or extend the pre-pregnancy supplementation time as appropriate.

Women who are preparing for pregnancy or in the early stages of pregnancy should eat more foods rich in folic acid, such as green leafy vegetables, soy products, animal liver, lean meat, eggs, etc., develop a healthy lifestyle and maintain a reasonable weight.

For people at high risk of folate deficiency, the dosage of folate supplementation is different:

Women with a history of giving birth to newborns with neural tube defects should take folic acid supplements at 4 mg/d starting from the time of possible pregnancy or at least 1 month before pregnancy until the 3rd month of pregnancy.

Women with congenital hydrocephalus, congenital heart disease, cleft lip and palate, limb defects, urinary system defects, or second-degree relatives with a history of neural tube defects in newborns should take folic acid supplements of 0.8-1.0 mg/d from the time of possible pregnancy or at least 3 months before pregnancy until the 3rd month of pregnancy.

Women with diabetes, obesity, epilepsy, gastrointestinal malabsorption diseases, or who are taking drugs that increase the risk of neural tube defects in the fetus or newborn, such as carbamazepine, valproic acid, phenytoin sodium, primidone, phenobarbital, metformin, methotrexate, sulfasalazine, trimethoprim, triamterene, cholestyramine, etc., should take folic acid supplements of 0.8-1.0 mg/d from the time of possible pregnancy or at least 3 months before pregnancy until the 3rd month of pregnancy.

For women with hyperhomocysteinemia, it is recommended to supplement folic acid by at least 5 mg/d, and to conceive after the serum homocysteine ​​level drops to normal, and to continue supplementing folic acid at 5 mg/d until the 3rd month of pregnancy.

2. Women in the middle and late stages of pregnancy and breastfeeding

In addition to regularly consuming foods rich in folic acid, women in the second and third trimesters of pregnancy and breastfeeding women should continue to supplement folic acid. The recommended folic acid supplementation dose for the second and third trimesters of pregnancy is 0.4 mg/d.

During the pregnancy preparation period, not only women need to supplement folic acid, but men also need to supplement folic acid. Insufficient folic acid will reduce the concentration of semen and the vitality of sperm, and sometimes lead to abnormal chromosome separation. Therefore, in order to give birth to a healthy baby, the couple needs to supplement folic acid together.

While supplementing folic acid, you should also have a balanced diet, develop a healthy lifestyle, maintain a reasonable weight, prevent high fever in early pregnancy, and reduce fetal neural tube defects.