Folate supplementation for prevention of congenital heart defects and low birth weight: an update

Maternal folate insufficiency during early pregnancy is associated with increased risk of anaemia, pregnancy complications and birth defects. The biological functions of folate “Lucy factor” have been discovered in the late 1920th. In particular, the role of folate during pregnancy has been discovered by the British scientist Lucy Wills [1888–1964] through her pioneering survey studies in Hindu Indian women. Women of a particularly poor population subgroup manifested severe anemia during pregnancy, early abortions, and malformed births. The vitamin folate has been discovered and purified in 1945, only few years before the discovery of another important B-vitamin, vitamin B12 (cobalamin). Due to the interaction between folate and B12 metabolisms, also vitamin B12 deficiency causes megaloblastic anaemia that is not treatable with folate. During the first 2 decades after folate discovery, large doses of folic acid have been used to treat vitamin B12-deficiency with variable success in correcting anaemia and/or neurological manifestations. Later, specific folate and vitamin B12 assays in blood have become available. Anaemia is no longer considered a diagnostic test for folate or B12 deficiencies