After the scientists from the University of Ulster in the United Kingdom, UK, carried out a study looking at the long term effects of taking the supplement, they found that the children whose mothers took the supplement the entire time had significantly higher levels of emotional intelligence and resilience and bigger vocabularies. These were disclosed at the annual conference of the British Psychological Society in Brighton.
The researchers carried out the study looking at the long term effects of taking the supplement. They gave supplements of folic acid – which is found naturally in green leafy vegetables, such as spinach, to 22 mothers while the other 19 took it just for the first three months, as recommended by National Institute For Health and Clinical Excellence,NICE, guidelines. After this, the mothers were given a placebo.
At present, expecting women are only recommended to take a supplement of 400 microgrammes of folic acid, for the first 12 weeks of pregnancy.
The recommendation is to ensure proper development of the brain – and to prevent spina bifida. Emotional intelligence is the ability to control and express emotions and handle relationships with others.
Resilience is the ability to deal with problems in life. Folate, forms of which are known as folic acid and vitamin B9, is one of the B vitamins. Folic acid is used to treat anaemia caused by folic acid deficiency. It is also used as a supplement by women during pregnancy to prevent neural tube defects, NTDs, in the baby. NTDs are birth defects of the brain, spine, or spinal cord.
They happen in the first month of pregnancy, often before a woman even knows that she is pregnant.
The two most common neural tube defects are spina bifida and anencephaly. In spina bifida, the foetal spinal column doesn’t close completely. Over 50 countries use fortification of certain foods with folic acid as a measure to decrease the rate of NTDs in the population.
Long term supplementation is also associated with small reductions in the risk of stroke and cardiovascular disease. Reacting to the new study, Dr. Tony Cassidy of the University of Ulster, said: “Given it has this positive effect, we wanted to know whether it would have a positive effect beyond three months.
“We found there was an advantage for children whose mothers had taken folic acid for verbal IQ and reasoning compared to those who did not take the folic acid.
“We were also looking at emotional intelligence and resilience. We found significant benefits for the children whose mothers took folic acid,’ he said.
He said that he expected that if further trials showed the same results, there would be a strong case for advising mothers to keep taking the folic acid at the recommended level after the first 12 weeks of pregnancy.
