Taking folic acid every day, both before you conceive and throughout your pregnancy, is the most important thing you can do to prevent neural tube defects in your baby. The neural tube connects the brain and the spinal cord. It develops in the first few weeks of pregnancy.

Folic Acid helps:

• Make nucleic acids which is needed for proper production and maintenance of cells
• Our bodies especially during periods of rapid cell division, such as pregnancy and infancy
• Makes red blood cells
  

DID YOU KNOW?

• Folic acid is a B vitamin that can help reduce the risk of neural tube defects
• Folate and folic acid are different terms for the same B vitamin
• B Vitamins are water soluble, meaning any excess is not stored but excreted or lost through perspiration.  They must be continually replaced to maintain proper blood levels, in order to supply the tissues with the needed nutrients required for the necessary physiological and biochemical cycles in which they are involved

For further information regarding the importance of folic acid, what are neural tube defects, what foods contain folic acid, click on Spina Bifida & Hydrocephalus Association of Ontario or SB&H!