What should I do if I didn’t take folic acid during early pregnancy?

Women need to supplement folic acid appropriately during the preparation for pregnancy and the early stages of pregnancy. Folic acid is an essential element during pregnancy. Folic acid can prevent fetal neural tube defects. The amount of folic acid that pregnant women need to supplement is between 0.4mg and 0.8mg. To supplement folic acid, you can eat some foods rich in folic acid. If the pregnant woman has enough folic acid in her body, there is no need to supplement folic acid. If too much folic acid is supplemented, it will also have an impact on the human body. What should I do if I didn’t take folic acid in the early pregnancy? Let’s take a look at it next.

2. Fruits high in folic acid

kiwi

Kiwi fruit is not only a type of fruit with a high level of folic acid, but it is also rich in vitamin C. Vitamin C can stabilize folic acid and improve its absorption and utilization rate by the human body, thus playing a complementary role.

peach

Peaches are rich in nutrients. In addition to being rich in folic acid, they also contain a variety of vitamins, fruit acids and trace elements. In particular, they are high in iron, which can have significant therapeutic effects on people with iron deficiency anemia. Although peaches are nutritious and delicious, they should be eaten in moderation, otherwise they can easily cause diarrhea, or eating too much can cause getting a sore throat.

pear

In addition to folic acid, pears also contain a large amount of protein, fat, calcium, phosphorus, iron, glucose, fructose, malic acid, carotene and various vitamins. They have good effects of promoting fluid production and quenching thirst, moistening dryness and reducing phlegm, moistening the lungs and relieving cough, nourishing yin and clearing away heat.

2. Vegetables high in folic acid

Aloe Vera

Aloe vera is one of the green vegetables with the highest nutritional value. It is recommended to consume fresh aloe vera as soon as possible after purchasing it, and cook it in a microwave, stir-fry or quickly blanch it to maintain its nutritional value.

spinach

Spinach is rich in folic acid. The biggest function of folic acid is to prevent the fetus from suffering from neurological malformations such as spina bifida, hydrocephalus, and anencephaly. At the same time, spinach is rich in B vitamins, which can also help women prevent common diseases such as pelvic infections, depression, and insomnia.

broccoli

Broccoli not only contains high amounts of folic acid, but is also extremely low in calories. Its high dietary fiber content can also help women improve constipation problems.

carrot

Carrots are rich in carotene, which has antioxidant activity. They are also rich in folic acid. It is recommended that you wash them and blend them into juice for consumption, which is the most direct way to consume a large amount of folic acid.

3. What is the best way to supplement folic acid?

The folic acid in food is unstable and can easily lose its activity when exposed to strong light and heat. After vegetables are stored for 2-3 days, the loss of folic acid can reach 50%~70%. Some folic acid will be lost after cooking. Cooking methods such as making soup will cause the loss of folic acid to reach 50% to 95%. Vegetables soaked in salt water will also lose a lot of folic acid. Therefore, the amount of folic acid that the human body can obtain from food is very small. If an ordinary person has a balanced diet, the folic acid obtained from food can basically meet physiological needs. However, the demand for folic acid increases during pregnancy, and food alone cannot meet the body's needs, so additional supplements are needed.

For the health of you and your baby, you should take folic acid on the basis of a proper diet. A healthy diet contains other natural substances that may help promote folate absorption.