Folic acid use drops among Latinas
Use of vitamins with folic acid -- a dietary supplement that can prevent neural tube birth defects -- declined among Latinas in California from 2002 to 2006, despite a decade-long public health effort that has raised consumption among black, white and Asian women of childbearing age, according to a study released Thursday.
The downward trend among Latinas, to whom more than half of the babies in the state are born, has led public health officials to worry that the state’s birth-defect rate could rise.
California Latinas already have a rate of neural tube birth defects nearly double that of whites, previous studies have found.
“I think we should be concerned,” said Dr. Michelle A. Bholat, a Latina family physician at UCLA not involved in the study. “Whatever we’re doing doesn’t seem to be working.”
Researchers at the California Department of Public Health found that 30.2% of Latinas took daily supplements with folic acid in 2006, compared with 32.8% in 2002. Though the decline was small, it was an unsettling development when compared with the gradual increases in consumption among other groups.
Latinas have the lowest rate of folic consumption, according to the study. In 2006, 50.6% of white women, 39.5% of black women, and 40% of Asian women or women of other races used daily folic acid supplements.
Experts suggested that the lower rates among Latinas may be because of less health counseling, lower education and delays in prenatal care.
Bholat added that cultural issues might play a role. She said a traditional view among Mexican women is that “when you are pregnant, you don’t take anything into your body, even a little pill that the doctors give you.”
Doctors have long known that younger women need 400 micrograms daily of folic acid to reduce their chances of giving birth to infants with neural tube defects. The two most common such defects, caused by the fetal spinal column’s failure to fully close, are spina bifida and anencephaly, a condition in which much of the brain does not develop.
Health officials recommend folic acid for all women of childbearing age because about half of pregnancies are unplanned. Development of the neural tube generally happens within the month after conception, before some women see a doctor.
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