Folic Acid Deficit Raises Miscarriage Risk

Low folic acid levels in women have been linked to a variety of birth defects, and now a new study links low folate levels in women to an increased risk of miscarriages.

In the three-year study, American and Swedish researchers looked at nearly 1,400 women in Sweden, a country that does not require folic acid food fortification. They found that women with low folate levels had a 50 percent increased risk of having a miscarriage before their 20th week.

The results are published in the Oct. 16 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association.

"The results of this study reinforce the importance of folate for women in their childbearing years," said Dr. Duane Alexander, director of the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development.

The researchers, from the NICHD and from the Huddinge University Hospital, Karolinska Institutet, in Stockholm, Sweden, said they haven't yet identified how low folate levels cause miscarriages.

The finding suggests that a 1998 mandate by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to fortify grain products with folic acid, the synthetic form of the vitamin folate, may prevent miscarriage in some women, in addition to lowering their risk for having a child with a class of birth defects known as neural tube defects.

The Institute of Medicine recommends that all women of childbearing age receive 400 micrograms of folic acid each day. Folate occurs naturally in beans, leafy green vegetables and citrus fruits.