SPINA BIFIDA

Prenatal care is an important step in preventing many birth defects. Besides regular prenatal visits to your doctor, good nutrition, including supplementing your diet with vitamins and minerals, helps reduce the risk of certain birth defects.

In fact, you should start taking folic acid, one of the B vitamins, before you become pregnant. Getting the recommended daily amount of folic acid before you become pregnant and during your pregnancy reduces the risk of spina bifida (see below) and other neural tube defects (birth defects that affect the development of the brain and spinal cord).

An article in the June 20, 2001, issue of The Journal of the American Medical Association reports on the decrease in the number of neural tube defects in the United States that appears to be related to the addition of folic acid to all enriched grain products. The United States Food and Drug Administration mandated that all enriched grain products (breads, pastas, rice, flour and cereals that are enriched with supplemental vitamins) include folic acid supplementation as of January 1998.

Folic acid (sometimes referred to as folate) is one of the B vitamins. It is recommended that any woman who could possibly become pregnant supplement her diet daily with 400 micrograms (0.4 milligrams) of folic acid. It is important that you get the recommended daily allowance of folic acid before you become pregnant because by the time pregnancy is confirmed, the baby's brain and spinal cord have already started to develop.

Neural tube defects are birth defects that occur in the early stages of fetal development when the cells for the brain and spinal cord form a tubelike structure known as the neural tube. The entire nervous system develops from this structure. Neural tube defects can involve the brain, spinal cord, meninges (covering membranes), skull and spine.

Spina bifida, a common neural tube defect, occurs when vertebrae (the bones of the spine that protect the spinal cord) do not close completely around the part of the spinal cord that they are meant to protect. This can cause the unprotected part of the spinal cord to protrude through the spinal defect. Although the spinal defect can sometimes be repaired through surgery, nerve damage that may have occurred because of this malformation may be permanent.