Folic Acid Supplements During Pregnancy Help Prevent Language Delay In Children

Taking folic acid during pregnancy results in decreased risk of giving birth to a child with a serious language delay, a Norwegian study found.

"Maternal use of supplements containing folic acid within the period from four weeks before, to eight weeks after conception was associated with a substantially reduced risk of severe language delay in children at age 3 years," said researcher Christine Roth, a Ph.D. student in mental health at the Norwegian Institute of Public Health in Oslo.

The data came from the Norwegian Mother and Child Cohort study of nearly 39,000 children, conducted from 1999 through 2008, in which mothers assessed their child's language skills using a scale. Of the children, 204 had a severe language delay, and 0.9 percent of those whose mothers took no supplements had severe language delays. But just 0.4 percent of children whose mothers took folic acid supplements alone or in combination with other supplements had severe language delays.

Folic acid is already recommended during pregnancy due to its proven ability to prevent neural tube defects by helping nerve cells restore themselves. Roch said she suspects the nutrient acts in a similar way to prevent language delays, but that more research is needed.

"This is an interesting study showing an association with severe language delays, but I don't know that there's enough here to show causality," Dr. Deborah Campbell, the director of the division of neonatology at the Children's Hospital at Montefiore Medical Center in New York, told HealthDay.

The study appeared in the Oct. 12 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association.