Prevention of neural tube defects in Europe: a public health failure
Thirty years ago it was demonstrated that folic acid taken before pregnancy and in early pregnancy reduced the risk of a neural tube defect (NTD). This study aimed to estimate the number of NTD pregnancies that would have been prevented if flour had been fortified with folic acid in Europe from 1998 as it had been in the USA.
Estimates of NTD prevalence from 1998 to 2017 were used to predict the number of NTD pregnancies that would have been prevented if folic acid fortification had been implemented in the 28 countries who were members of the European Union in 2017 using data from 35 EUROCAT congenital anomaly registries and literature searches for population serum folate levels and for folic acid supplementation.
The result indicate that between 14,600 and 19,500 NTD pregnancies may have been prevented if the European countries had implemented fortification at the level adopted by the USA in 1998 depending on the proportion of women who took folic acid supplements before becoming pregnant and during the first trimester of pregnancy.
This study suggests that failure to implement mandatory folic acid fortification in the 28 European countries has caused, and continues to cause, neural tube defects to occur in almost 1,000 pregnancies every year.
MORRIS Joan;
ADDOR Marie-Claude;
BALLARDINI Elisa;
BARISIC Ingeborg;
BARRACHINA-BONET Laia;
BRAZ Paula;
CAVERO-CARBONELL Clara;
DEN HOND Elly;
GARNE Ester;
GATT Miriam;
HAEUSLER Martin;
KHOSHNOOD Babak;
LELONG Natalie;
KINSNER-OVASKAINEN Agnieszka;
KIURU-KUHLEFELT Sonja;
KLUNGSOYR Kari;
LATOS-BIELENSKA Anna;
LIMB Elisabeth;
O'MAHONY Marie T.;
PERTHUS Isabelle;
PIERINI Anna;
RANKIN Judith;
RISSMANN Anke;
ROUGET Florence;
SAYERS Gerardine;
SIPEK Antonin;
STEVENS Sara;
TUCKER David;
VERELLEN-DUMOULIN Christine;
DE WALLE Hermien;
WELLESLEY Diana;
WERTELECKI Wladimir;
BERMEJO-SANCHEZ Eva;
2021-06-25
FRONTIERS MEDIA SA
JRC121713
2296-2360 (online),
https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fped.2021.647038/full,
https://publications.jrc.ec.europa.eu/repository/handle/JRC121713,
10.3389/fped.2021.647038 (online),
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