Valuable Supplements.

* Magnesium may help prevent cerebral palsy. Scientists at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in Atlanta have shown that giving magnesium sulfate to pregnant women may greatly reduce the incidence of cerebral palsy in infants born weighing less than 3.3 pounds. These low birthweight infants are 60 to 75 times more likely to develop cerebral palsy than babies that reach a normal weight before birth -- and the number of children with cerebral palsy is growing as medical advances enable even many one pound infants to survive.

Magnesium sulfate is routinely given intravenously to halt preterm labor or prevent convulsions in women with pregnancy-induced hypertension. In 1987, Dutch researchers found it also prevents hemorrhaging in the brains of infants whose mothers have this form of hypertension.

A study from California found that of low birthweight babies born to women who had been given magnesium sulfate, 11 percent had cerebral palsy. However, 46 percent of the premature babies of women who had not been receiving the drug had cerebral palsy!

More recently, researchers at CDC set out to study low birthweight infants born in Georgia between 1986 and 1988. They found that less than one percent of children whose mothers were given magnesium sulfate developed cerebral palsy, compared to eight percent of babies whose mothers were not given the drug.

The researchers calculated that magnesium sulfate reduced the prevalence of cerebral palsy by about 90 percent and reduced the prevalence of mental retardation by about 70 percent, although the latter link was weaker.

-- Science News, 12/14/96

* Folic acid is underused. Folic acid supplementation of 400 micrograms per day before conception and during early pregnancy could prevent the majority of the 4000 neural tube defects in the U.S. each year. For this reason, the Public Health Service and other authorities recommend routine folic add supplementation for all women of childbearing age capable of becoming pregnant. A 1995 telephone survey of over 3000 Georgian women aged 15 to 44 suggests that neither folic acid supplementation nor the knowledge about its benefits are routine.

Only 20 percent of respondents reported that they consumed a multivitamin containing at least 400 mcg. of folic add daily, and only 29 percent had heard that folic acid could prevent some birth defects. Supplement use was associated with higher educational and income levels. In addition, women who had heard about the benefits of folic add were more likely to use it daily than women who had not (30 percent vs. 16 percent).

The best estimates indicate that 75 to 88 percent of today's American women of reproductive age do not consume enough folic add to reduce the risk of neural tube defects if they become pregnant. The Food and Drug Administration is requiring that several foods be enriched with folate by January 1, 1998, but this alone will not necessarily deliver the full recommended daily dose needed for protection.

--OMC Birthing Newsletter, Winter 1996