About the Project

Getting enough folic acid through food or supplements during pregnancy can protect infants from neural tube defects, like spina bifida. The concentration of folate in a woman’s red blood cells shows whether she’s getting enough folic acid. Nationwide efforts to add folic acid to cereal grain products have helped reduce neural tube defects, and more recent efforts to add it to corn masa flour may have the same effect. This newsletter aimed to address the need for adequate amounts of folic acid being taken by pregnant individuals. Lack of folic acid has been shown in research to be associated with complicated, and even deadly, birth defects. The reader of this newsletter should take away the importance of folic acid, where they can get folic acid supplements/in certain food, and what a lack of folic acid has been associated with in fetus health research.