Folic Acid and Pregnancy – Its Important Sources

The food you eat ultimately determines your health conditions, in the long term. Therefore, due importance should be given to the quality of food you consume in your daily routine. The situation becomes all the more crucial, if you are expecting a baby. This is one of the most cherished moments of your life, when you are going to give birth to a new life. The health of the baby greatly depends on your habits and behavior, during pregnancy. That is why special attention should be given to the food you consume during pregnancy because it will ultimately affects the health of your baby. There are some specific nutrients which are strongly recommended to be taken during pregnancy as they are proved to have positive impacts on the baby’s health. One such nutrient is the folic acid.

If you are wondering if you should take the folic even before your pregnancy, the answer is definitely a big ‘Yes’. Well, first and the foremost is the fact that you will trigger the production of Red Blood Cells by taking the Folic acid in your food. Since the deficiency of RBCs may cause a serious problem of anemia, you will not be able to feed your baby, as required. The baby will need the highest amount of folic acid, at the time of saturation of placental receptor. Therefore, it is important to make it available to your little one at that time. In addition, the protein metabolism and division of cells is the responsibility of folic acid, present in your body, which justifies your need of taking the folic acid supplements, right before your pregnancy starts.

Now coming to the sources of folic acid and which foods are rich in the nutrient, you should be mindful of the fact that all natural foods are the rich sources of folic acid. You should ideally eat plenty of fruits. It is strongly recommended by gynecologists that you increase the intake of citric fruits during pregnancy as they contain the highest amounts of folic acid. This is especially true for the citric fruits like oranges, lemons, pineapples, strawberries etc. Talking about the vegetables, you should inculcate spinach, green turnip and broccoli in your diet, during pregnancy.

In addition to adding these natural foods to your diet, you may take the artificial fortified products, which are especially prepared in light of the recommendations of doctors. Make sure to include the proper amount of folic acid in your diet. The best source is undoubtedly the natural products which are devoid of any chemicals and are bound to benefit the health of you as well as your baby. If you go for the fortified ones, you should first have a close loom at the label for complete information about the ingredients, in order to have an idea about the other ingredients. Therefore, it can be concluded that the intake of folic acid is extremely important for the health of both the mother and the baby.