Maternal folic acid level linked to birth weight
Reuters - Pregnant women who lack the vitamin folate in their blood are more likely to have a baby with a low birth weight, British scientists said on Friday
Ref. https://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=stor...hl_nm/folate_dc
My wife had to take folic acid when she was pregnant and they told her that her low counts could cause low birth rate. She took vitamins as well as drank allot of natural fruit juices to help the situation. As a result, our baby girl was only slightly under weight when she was born. My first two kids where not under weight at all being almost ten pounds and three weeks early. She did not have the deficiency either.
My son was born 6lb 13oz and he was considered low birth weight; something like 2nd percentile in weight. He is almost 2 1/2 now, and he is still only in the 5th percentile for weight. I wonder if they make those charts based on a sampling of children, because he is definitely not as heavy as most toddlers in his age range.
Automatically when you become pregnant in England, you are prescribed folic acid tablets and vitamin tablets. further into the pregnancy, you then have to take iron tablets (only as prescribed by your Doctor).
I don't think a baby over 6lb would be classed as low birth weight here in the UK, but they do have special baby units for very low birth weight babies, that normally weigh between 2.2lb and 6lb.
Yes, I think low birth weight is under 6 pounds. I'm surprised, malexander, that they told you 6/13 was low! Folic acid plays a very important part in "building babies," especially the brain and spinal cord, and helps women overcome certain forms of anemia. It think it's a B vitamin? Important to know, for those in their childbearing years