Cargando…
Awareness and Use of Folic Acid among Women of Childbearing Age
Folic acid (FA) given before and during pregnancy reduces the risk of several birth defects, including neurologic, cardiac, urinary and other congenital anomalies in the newborn. Several studies around the world showed less than satisfactory awareness and intake of this important vitamin. We underto...
Autores principales: | , , |
---|---|
Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
Publicado: |
Ubiquity Press
2019
|
Materias: | |
Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6634342/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/30977622 http://dx.doi.org/10.5334/aogh.2396 |
_version_ | 1783435766443016192 |
---|---|
author | Medawar, Giselle Wehbe, Tarek Abou Jaoude, Elizabeth |
author_facet | Medawar, Giselle Wehbe, Tarek Abou Jaoude, Elizabeth |
author_sort | Medawar, Giselle |
collection | PubMed |
description | Folic acid (FA) given before and during pregnancy reduces the risk of several birth defects, including neurologic, cardiac, urinary and other congenital anomalies in the newborn. Several studies around the world showed less than satisfactory awareness and intake of this important vitamin. We undertook the task of exploring this question among Lebanese women of childbearing age. Between June and November 2014, we conducted this cross-sectional study on women aged 20 to 40 years. The subjects, who agreed to participate, completed a questionnaire, which included questions on sociodemographic characteristics, lifestyle, and knowledge about FA roles during pregnancy, as well as their babies’ health. Seventy-six percent reported having knowledge about FA during pregnancy, but only a small proportion knew the benefits for taking it. Also, 93.9% of women took FA supplements during pregnancy, however only 33.6% of the participants took FA before becoming aware of their pregnancy. Public health interventions to improve awareness of FA’s roles before and during pregnancy are crucial to curtail birth defects. It is our opinion that it is a very fruitful preventive medicine tool in which every community should invest. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-6634342 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2019 |
publisher | Ubiquity Press |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-66343422019-09-16 Awareness and Use of Folic Acid among Women of Childbearing Age Medawar, Giselle Wehbe, Tarek Abou Jaoude, Elizabeth Ann Glob Health Original Research Folic acid (FA) given before and during pregnancy reduces the risk of several birth defects, including neurologic, cardiac, urinary and other congenital anomalies in the newborn. Several studies around the world showed less than satisfactory awareness and intake of this important vitamin. We undertook the task of exploring this question among Lebanese women of childbearing age. Between June and November 2014, we conducted this cross-sectional study on women aged 20 to 40 years. The subjects, who agreed to participate, completed a questionnaire, which included questions on sociodemographic characteristics, lifestyle, and knowledge about FA roles during pregnancy, as well as their babies’ health. Seventy-six percent reported having knowledge about FA during pregnancy, but only a small proportion knew the benefits for taking it. Also, 93.9% of women took FA supplements during pregnancy, however only 33.6% of the participants took FA before becoming aware of their pregnancy. Public health interventions to improve awareness of FA’s roles before and during pregnancy are crucial to curtail birth defects. It is our opinion that it is a very fruitful preventive medicine tool in which every community should invest. Ubiquity Press 2019-04-09 /pmc/articles/PMC6634342/ /pubmed/30977622 http://dx.doi.org/10.5334/aogh.2396 Text en Copyright: © 2019 The Author(s) http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC-BY 4.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. See http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/. |
spellingShingle | Original Research Medawar, Giselle Wehbe, Tarek Abou Jaoude, Elizabeth Awareness and Use of Folic Acid among Women of Childbearing Age |
title | Awareness and Use of Folic Acid among Women of Childbearing Age |
title_full | Awareness and Use of Folic Acid among Women of Childbearing Age |
title_fullStr | Awareness and Use of Folic Acid among Women of Childbearing Age |
title_full_unstemmed | Awareness and Use of Folic Acid among Women of Childbearing Age |
title_short | Awareness and Use of Folic Acid among Women of Childbearing Age |
title_sort | awareness and use of folic acid among women of childbearing age |
topic | Original Research |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6634342/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/30977622 http://dx.doi.org/10.5334/aogh.2396 |
work_keys_str_mv | AT medawargiselle awarenessanduseoffolicacidamongwomenofchildbearingage AT wehbetarek awarenessanduseoffolicacidamongwomenofchildbearingage AT aboujaoudeelizabeth awarenessanduseoffolicacidamongwomenofchildbearingage |