Table of contents:
- What happens to babies with anencephaly?
- Prevent anencephaly by increasing your intake of folic acid
- When to start taking folate, and how much?
- Where are the sources of folate obtained?
Anencephaly is one of the most common types of birth defects - sometimes even fatal. One in 1,000 pregnancies has a high chance of experiencing this pregnancy complication. To make matters worse, not all cases of anencephaly have a definite cause. What you can do to prevent anencephaly from occurring in your future baby is to prepare your body from the stage of planning to get pregnant. One of the important keys is to increase the intake of foods high in folic acid.
What happens to babies with anencephaly?
Anencephaly is a serious birth defect that results in babies being born without part of their brain and skull. Anencephaly is a type of neural tube defect. The neural tube is the embryonic structure that eventually develops into the baby's brain and skull, as well as the spinal cord and other accompanying tissue.
Illustration of anencephaly baby source: https://ghr.nlm.nih.gov/condition/anencephaly
This condition occurs when the top of the neural tube fails to close completely. As a result, the developing baby's brain and spinal cord are contaminated with amniotic fluid. This exposure to amniotic fluid then causes nervous system tissue to break down and break down. This resulted in the baby being born without a cerebellum and cerebellum. These two parts of the brain are needed for thinking, hearing, seeing, emotions, and coordinating movement.
Almost all babies diagnosed with anencephaly die while still in the womb. This condition cannot be cured. Even if babies survive in the womb until the end of pregnancy, about 40% of anencephalic babies are born prematurely. However, there is a high risk of dying within hours or days of birth.
Prevent anencephaly by increasing your intake of folic acid
The exact cause of anencephaly is unknown. However, inadequate intake of folic acid (vitamin B9) before and during pregnancy can increase the risk of birth defects in the baby, including neural tube defects that lead to anencephaly.
Therefore, folic acid is a nutritional requirement that is very mandatory for every woman who is planning or is planning a pregnancy. Being late or not increasing your intake of folic acid during pregnancy will only increase the risk of anencephaly because the process has already occurred and is irreversible. However, women who have not or are not planning to have a baby should increase their intake of folic acid if they are sexually active. The reason is, pregnancy can happen without being planned.
Early in pregnancy or even before you know you are pregnant, folate plays an important role in early fetal development, when the fetus is still in the form of a neural tube. The neural tube usually forms early in pregnancy and closes on the 28th day after conception.
Research shows that women who took folic acid supplements before becoming pregnant and continued during the first trimester reduced their risk of birth defects by up to 72 percent. In fact, a number of studies have also shown that consuming adequate folic acid in early pregnancy is associated with a reduced risk of language delays in children at 3 years of age.
When to start taking folate, and how much?
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention The United States (CDC) recommends women of childbearing age consume 0.4 mg (400 mcg) of folate / day to prevent birth defects, at least a month before becoming pregnant. The Indonesian Ministry of Health, through the 2013 Nutritional Adequacy Rate guidelines, recommends that every woman consume 400 mcg / day of folate before pregnancy and plus 200 mcg / day during pregnancy.
Women who take folate daily at the recommended dosage starting at least one month before conception (conception) and during the first trimester of pregnancy can reduce their baby's risk of neural tube defects (the cause of anencephaly and spina bifida) by more than 70 percent.
Where are the sources of folate obtained?
Folate can be found in green leafy vegetables, whole grains, and other foods. In Indonesia, the government has made folate fortification mandatory for all flour that is marketed for the purpose of improving nutrition.
Here are some food sources of folate:
- Flour and cereals fortified with folate
- Green leafy vegetables, such as spinach, asparagus, broccoli,brussels sprouts, turnip greens, lettuce
- Fruits, such as oranges, avocados, papayas, bananas
- Nuts, such as nutschickpeas(chickpeas)
- Peas
- Corn
- Dairy products
- Chicken, beef, eggs and fish
- Wheat
- Potato
Spinach, beef liver, asparagus, andbrussels sprouts are the highest sources of folate. Apart from food sources, folic acid can be met from a pregnant multivitamin to help prevent anencephaly.
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