by One of 33 babies in the United States was born with birth defects. However, a new study from the centers for the control and prevention of diseases is sharpened to raise awareness of the reduction of this risk.
The study can do something about five risk factors, the civil servants of public health – and in some cases themselves – do something about it: obesity, diabetes, smoking exposure, food uncertainty and low folate levels (an essential vitamin that helps the body to produce cells).
According to the study, 66% of women between the ages of 12 and 49 have at least one of these risk factors and 10% three or more. The results of the CDC published on Tuesday in the American Journal of Pruventive Medicine are based on answers from 5,374 women who have completed the survey on the national health and nutritional examination of the agency from 2007 to 2020.
“We cannot underline enough how important it is to raise awareness of these risk factors and encourage women to speak to their doctors if they have concerns or questions about pregnancy,” said Arick Wang, health scientist at the CDC and the main author of the new study, by e -mail.
She added that the “risks through steps such as the recommended 400 micrograms (MCG) folic acid can be reduced daily, healthy eating and movement as well as the treatment of blood sugar.
According to CDC data, birth defects are the most common cause of death in infants. The risks often begin before some women even know they are pregnant. Although the causes of birth defects are largely a mystery, scientists generally recognize that a combination of genetics, environment and lifestyle factors is responsible.
“This should be a wake -up call for all of us,” said Dr. Michael Warren, Chief Medical and Health Officer of March of Dimes, a non-profit research and interest representative group that focuses on the health of mothers and infants.
“We would like to make sure that people have access to nutritious foods,” said Warren, who was not involved in the study. “We would like to make sure that people have safe places to be physically active.”
People with food uncertainty can be defective that are of crucial importance for the proper development of the organs of the fetus, including folic acid. For example, low folate concentrations in the blood are connected to neural tube defects – brain or vertebral sound defects that develop in the first month of pregnancy. Doctors recommend that people who are pregnant or try to get pregnant, folic acid, the synthetic version of folate.
Since 1998, the Food and Drug Administration has needed that enriched grain grain products are enriched with folic acid. Wang, the CDC scientist, said in a press release that the directive probably prevents more than 1,300 babies without a neural pipe error.
“We still don’t know the vast majority of birth defects that occur why they appear,” said Nembhard. “Even if women do everything right – they don’t smoke, they don’t drink during pregnancy, they monitor the caffeine, they train – they can still have a result that is not what they wanted.”
Warren, who worked as Associate Administrator of the Mothers Health Office of mothers and children of HHS, said that many women may not know that conditions such as obesity and nutritional uncertainty are also risk factors.
Obesity that had about a third of the women interviewed was the most common modifiable risk factor in the CDC study. Scientists are not exactly clear why it is connected to birth defects, but they suspect that it has something to do with changes in the metabolism of a woman.
“When [our] Cells grow and form organs, we really rely on the fact that everything works as it should. And if you interfere with these processes, things can go wrong, ”said Warren.
High blood sugar from diabetes can also lead to abnormal organ development, he said. And some of the chemicals in cigarette smoke, including nicotine, can reduce the supply of oxygen to the fetus.
Warren said there is more to do. He pointed to Mississippi, who explained and promised and promised an emergency for public health compared to his high children’s mortality rates last week, in which women have no access to obstetrics.
External researchers praised the release of the study in the middle of layoffs and proposed the agency financing cuts.
“We are pleased that this study has not yet been completed. There were some questions whether it would go on or not,” said Wendy Nembhard, director of the Arkansas Center for Birth Defective Research and Prevention at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences.
The Department of Health and Human Services announced the termination of 2,400 CDC employees in March. However, a federal judge made a preliminary decision on August 12 that blocked the layoffs for certain CDC programs, including the National Center for birth defects and developmental disorders – the group behind the new study. It is still expected that at least 600 CDC employees will receive permanent notice of termination.
This article was originally published on nbcnews.com
