Folic Acid May Prevent Cleft Lip and Palate in Infants

Gulping down leafy vegetables, citrus fruits, beans, and whole grains early in their pregnancy can help women reduce their baby’s chances of being born with a facial cleft, claims a team of researchers from the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIHES), part of the National Institutes of Health. The NIEHS team found that 0.4 miligrams (mg) a day of folic acid, which is found in leafy vegetables, citrus fruits, beans, and whole grains could reduce the baby’s risk by one third.

“These findings provide further evidence of the benefits of folic acid for women,” said Allen J. Wilcox, lead author of the study published in the latest British Medical Journal. “We already know that folic acid reduces the risk of neural tube defects, including spina bifida.”

Folic acid is a B vitamin found in leafy vegetables, citrus fruits, beans, and whole grains. It can also be taken as a vitamin supplement, and it is added to flour and other fortified foods. The recommended daily dietary allowance for folate for adults is 400 micrograms or 0.4 mg.

“Folic acid deficiency causes facial clefts in laboratory animals, so we had a good reason to focus on folic acid in our clefts study,” said Wilcox. This population-based study was conducted in Norway, which has one of the highest rates of facial clefts in Europe and does not allow foods to be fortified with folic acid. In the US, on other hand, about one in every 750 babies is born with cleft lip and/ or palate.

The researchers estimated that 22 percent of isolated either cleft lip with or without cleft palate (CLP) cases in Norway could be averted if all pregnant women took 0.4 mg of folic acid per day.