You’ve probably heard that folic acid is really important for mouth health, but what about pregnancy health? This is something that can actually help prevent a lot of defects in the brain of a baby, and their spine. This is also good for preventing anemia, which also affects your gums and tongue too.
How it Helps Pregnancy
If you’re looking to figure out how to make your pregnancy as healthy as possible, it’s important to consider folic acid. That’s because when you’re pregnant, your body does need more red blood cells, and folic acid, or vitamin B9, plays a vital role in this. This can actually help to reduce the chance for birth defects in newborns, including in their brain and spine. Enough folic acid does help with the defects in the neural tubes, which does happen in some cases.
Oral Health
So how does it help the mouth? Well, it’s crucial for your oral health, especially when pregnant When we lack enough red blood cells, this causes anemia, which means that there isn’t enough oxygen happening within our body and going around to our cells. It can actually cause tongue soreness, lack of gums, and even weakness too. Folate helps with this to make enough red blood cells, and we can of course reduce the symptoms, or even prevent this completely in a ton of cases too.
Who Needs This
Women in their first trimester of pregnancy definitely should take this. Up to 600 mcg can be taken, but you should always talk to your doctor to see if this is correct for you. Women who are of childbearing age also should look to have at least 400 mcg of folic acid too. You can ger foliate from your foods that you eat, but a folic acid supplement is usually the best way to go about this.
You should try to have a lot of foods which contain vitamin B9 as well though. Lentils altogether have the recommended amount of folate in there and spinach, asparagus, and broccoli also have a ton of folate to this. Flour, along with rice also do get fortified with the addition of folic acid here. But you should definitely check the labels of this to see if that contains this.
If you’re someone who is looking for a supplement, you’re not alone. However, you should talk to your doctor before you decide to get a multivitamin that contains folate. Some people do inadvertently take too much, and it can be a bit of a problem. However those who have a history of those that have neural tube defects in their life may get a larger dosage in many cases.
In general though, it’s much better to be on the heavier amounts of folate side tan not enough, since it does cause birth defects in a ton of cases. If you’re pregnant though and haven’t spoken to a doctor about this year, definitely do so.
Keeping your oral health and physical health up to snuff when pregnant is very important, and in this, we went over one part of making sure that you have good bodily health. But remember that this, and this alone isn’t the only thing that you should have, and you should also not only look at the physical health that you have, but also the health of your baby. Talk to your doctor to see if folic acid is correct for you for starters, but also what you should take, and how much you should take as well in order to have a healthy body.
Mouth Health 