Birth defects drop.Neural tube birth defects (NTDs) like spina bifida (open spine) and anencephaly anencephaly /an·en·ceph·a·ly/ (an?en-sef´ah-le) congenital absence of the cranial vault, with the cerebral hemispheres completely missing or reduced to small masses.anencephal´ic an·en·ceph·a·ly n. (no brain) occur in early pregnancy, often before a woman knows she is pregnant. Now researchers have more evidence that folic acid (folate folate /fo·late/ (fo´lat) 1. the anionic form of folic acid. 2. more generally, any of a group of substances containing a form of pteroic acid conjugated with l-glutamic acid and having a variety of substitutions. ) can prevent many NTDs. In 1998, the government started requiring the food industry to add folic acid to the flour used in most bread, cereal, pasta, and other foods. NTDs fell from roughly 4,000 per year in 19951996 to roughly 3,000 in 1999-2000. What to do: If you're capable of becoming pregnant, take a multivitamin mul·ti·vi·ta·min adj. Containing many vitamins. n. A preparation containing many vitamins. multivitamin with 400 mcg of folic acid. Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report (MMWR) is a weekly epidemiological digest for the United States published by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The 5 June 1981 issue of the MMWR published the cases of five men in what turned out to be the first report of AIDS. 53: 362, 2004. |
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