Pregnancy and vitamins

Press, 30 August 1980, Page 10

Pregnancy and vitamins

New Zealand is such a small country that professional health writers would find it difficult to survive. Is this important? Yes, it is, especially for . women. Margaret and Arthur Wynn are two concerned journalists who write about health matters in Britain. They became concerned about the high rate of handicapped children born there. They also noticed a great variation in malformations in the birth defects in / different coun- . tries. Birth defects produced in the first three months of pregnancy, such as spina bifida or other defects in the brain, were so common in Ireland that they were regarded, as “the curse of the Celt.” Young Irish women who go to the United States and adopt a standard American diet no longer have the abnormally high rate of birth defects. The Wynns are able to trace epidemics of malformed babies during food shortages in different countries. After the occupation of Oslo by the Germans in 1940 severe food shortages occurred. The epidemic of low birth weight babies was then counteracted completely in 700 women given supplements of vitamins. Sweden has the lowest death- rate of newly-born babies in the world. I.t also has the lowest rate of handicapped children; there all children had intensive dietary education, which emphasises vitamin

supplements during pregnancy. This is reinforced by district midwives and family planning groups. The Wynns, one of whom is a professional statistician, believe that the health of • women is more clearly at risk from minor vitamin deficiencies than men’s health. Men tend to control the media and resources. The health of new born babies and their normality seems to be related to dietary factors as well as the rare instance of viral nlness in early pregnancy. Margaret and Arthur Wynn’s book “Prevention of Handicap and the Health of Women,” published by Routledge and Kegan Paul (1979) is not a practical "do-it-yourself” book. It is not a guide — it is a theoretical, but popular, accumulation of scientific evidence, supporting the fact that food intake in Western societies is not ideal. The authors emphasise that in Third World and less developed countries women may suffer even more. About eighteen months after the Wynn’s work was written, comes some justification of their theories. They emphasise the high rale of neural tube defects in poorer areas of Britain. Neural tube defects occur in the first three months of pregnancy. They are really underdevelopments of . the forming brain and spinal cord. Thus, all ranges of deficiency in full development from mild mental handicap to severe defects, such as a bifid spinal cord or hydrocephalus, can occur in neural tube defects. Dr R. W. Smithells and a group of colleagues from five hospital groups in Britain gave vitamin supplements to half of a group of women who had previously had neural tube defect babies. Of the 178 women given supplements of vitamins in preconception and early preg-

nancy, only one woman had a neural tube defect baby. In comparision, the women who did not have preconception supplements had the same higher rates of deformed babies as in: their first pregnancy. No less than 13 of the 2G(J women had deformed babies. There is only a 1 in 100 chance that this result, may have occurred fortuitously. There is therefore a 99 per cent chance that the vitamins prevented a second, malformed baby. We have been repeatedly told — on very little good scientific evidence — that New Zealanders have an excellent diet. We are. told by the radio doctor, Dr H. B. Turbott, that nobody here needs vitamin supplements; this is . not true. Mrs Heather McClean, a nutritionist, showed in her recent, three-year research project in Christchurch, that one third of older men living alone in the city certainly needed vita-, min supplements. On the Smithells evidence, if you are a young woman wanting a normal baby after an abnormal pregnancy, you and your husband, should ask your family doctor about vitamin supplements before conception. One multi-vitamin tablet a day costs about 4 cents. If taken from the desired time of a properly planned pregnancy until three months of the pregnancy, this would cost less than $5. One neural tube damaged baby may . cost $12,000 to $15,000 during its first year in hospital alone. Should all New Zealand women have vitamins prior to conception? There is no positive scientific evidence to support this view because adequate trials have not been done here. But healthy eating and a good diet in women is important and appears to be linked to the future health of our children.