A new analysis of all the published research on prenatal vitamins have lead to a startling relevation: prenatal vitamins containing folic acid taken during pregnancy reduces the risk of childhood cancer.

The new research, published in Clinical Pharmacology & Therapeutics supports the use of the inexpensive, common supplement used by most pregnant women.

The study found that children born of mothers who took a daily multivitamin containing folic acid had a 47-per-cent lower risk for neuroblastoma (the most deadly form of childhood cancer), a 39-per-cent lower risk for leukemia (the most common form of pediatric cancer) and a 27-per-cent lower risk for brain tumours, said an article about the study in the Globe and Mail.

Discussions about vitamins have been rather heated on this site in the past. To prevent another outburst, I would like to clarify that this research has been conducted by the Motherisk program based at the hospital for Sick Children in Toronto. The hospital and its project are publically funded by Canadian tax payers as part of the provincial medical system that provides care for everyone and conducts research in the public interest. It’s also been published in a peer-reviewed journal.

Post from: Babylune

• Scientists divided 98 women into two groups. Every day, beginning at 20 weeks of pregnancy and continuing until the women gave birth, one group took a daily dose of 4 grams of fish oil, while the other took 4 grams of olive oil. Neither the mothers nor the researchers knew which supplement the women had received until the study ended.
• The researchers examined 72 children born to women who completed the study when the children were 2½ years old. In tests of locomotor ability, speech and hearing, vocabulary and practical reasoning, the children whose mothers were given fish oil during pregnancy scored slightly higher, but the differences were not statistically significant. But after controlling for maternal age, birth weight, breast- feeding and other factors, the children of the women who took fish oil were significantly better at hand-eye coordination than those of the women who took the olive oil supplement.

It isn’t only pregnant woment who should be taking fish oil supplements, says an article on Breastfeed.com. Fish and fish oil supplements contain docosahexaenoic acid, which is beneficial for infant brain development when passed to the child through breast milk.
“There is a lot of good evidence that DHA improves brain development in infants,” Luke R. Bucci, vice president of research at Weider Nutrition International told the web site. “Infants get DHA only from mother’s milk. When the mother eats a daily serving of fish with colored flesh, such as salmon, tuna, sardines or herring, to get enough DHA, or when she takes fish oil supplements, the benefits available to baby are optimized.”

The benefits of fish oils taken immediately after pregnancy and during breastfeeding helps to prevent and to treat postpartum depression. One summary of various studies published at ABC News put it best:

• Scientists first became interested when they noticed that countries with the highest fish consumption had the lowest rates of depression. They also observed that mothers in England who ate very little fish during pregnancy doubled their risk of developing postpartum depression compared to women who ate fish regularly. So scientists began a series of studies to see why.

A daily supplement of fish oil, rather than a daily serving of fish, is generally recommended due to concerns about mercury stored in fish such as tuna, shark and makerel.

For women who have just given birth, supplements are certainly not complete protection against the dangers of sleeplessness, stress and poor nutrition, but they can be a mild insurance against those problems becoming more serious once the newborn period is over.

Post from: Babylune

The new news reported in Maclean’s magazine is that taking vitamins may prevent infertility due to ovulation problems.

Dr. Jorge Chavarro of the department of nutrition at the Harvard School of Public Health who led the study says that there does appear to be a connection between vitamina and ovulation.

• “Women who consumed three or more multivitamins per week had a significantly lower risk of ovulatory infertility compared to women who did not consume multivitamins, and these results remained significant after adjusting for numerous factors that have been previously found to be related to fertility,” said Dr. Chavarro.

The methodology of the study involved studying the diets of 18,555 married women for 8 years based on the completion of a food questionnaire.

• “438 women reported infertility due to a problem with ovulation. Women who consumed six or more multivitamin tablets per week had a 40 per cent lower risk of infertility,” said the magazine article.

Post from: Babylune

Dr Graham Devereux, who led the research at Aberdeen University, told the Scotsman that a drop in people’s intake of vitamin E in the past 50 years was perhaps linked to the rising number of children with asthma. But he said more work was needed before specific advice could be given to women in order to reduce the risks to their children.

Sources of vitamin E include vegetable oils like olive oil, canola and sunflower oil, margarine, wheat germ, nuts, sunflower seeds, leafy green vegetables, meat and fish. So eating salad before one meal every day is a habit to strive for not just for pregnant women, but for everyone.

Vitamin depletion is not just about vitamine E. Yesterday, I was discussing post partum depression with a friend who recently recovered from the condition to become a depression activist. Her cure, she says, came from ensuring she got enough of the B vitamins.

Folic acid is one of the B vitamins. This made me wonder if women who stop taking their prenatal vitamins after the birth, instead of after they finish lactating, are at a greater risk of postpartum depression? I thought

I would ask about your experiences. Did you keep taking the vitamins and have PPD anyway, or did you stop taking them before you were diagnosed?

Post from: Babylune

Over the past few months, a number of widely-reported studies have lamented that taking daily vitamins doesn’t seem to improve health or longevity of the general population.

There is one serious exception to those findings: vitamins for prenatal health. While it has long been known that folic acid helps to prevent neural tube defects, and that iodine helps prevent other kinds of retardation, this new study shows that prenatal vitamins also help prevent cardiovascular and limb defects, cleft palate, oral cleft, congenital hydrocephalus, and urinary tract anomalies too.
A report on a study published in the Globe and Mail says that the evidence that taking prenatal vitamins prevents birth defects is so profound that all women of childbearing age should take one a day.

• “This is more than folic acid and it’s not just spina bifida,” Gideon Koren, director of the Motherisk Program at the Toronto Hospital for Sick Children, said in an interview.
• Based on the study, he said all women of childbearing age should be taking a prenatal vitamin daily. Because half of all pregnancies are unplanned and almost all birth defects develop in the first trimester, Dr. Koren said the recommendation should apply to all women.
• But he stressed that they should take a specific prenatal multivitamin.
• These differ from standard multivitamins in three important respects:
• More folic acid, more iron and less vitamin A — high levels of which can harm the fetus.

The study was published in the Journal of Obstetrics and Gynaecology of Canada (JOGC) yesterday. It gives women a simple, concrete action that they can perform to help protect their unborn children from serious harm. While there are no guarentees in this life of motherhood and childbirth, it is nice to be able to reduce any risk you can.

Some pregnant women complain that prenatal vitamins make them constipated or upset their already squeamish stomachs. Starting the vitamins before pregnancy, may give the system time to adjust to these discomforts so that they aren’t pronounced during the first trimester.

I would also add the taking the vitamin is so important that women will be forced to experiment and find healthy ways to decrease their discomfort. That may finally get us beyond the land of bad advice when it comes to dealing with morning sickness and other pregnancy discomforts and into the land of an excellent female network of shared experiences. I for one, can’t wait.

Post from: Babylune