A propensity-matched study of the association between optimal folic acid supplementation and birth defects in Shaanxi province, Northwestern China.

The association between folic acid supplementation and birth defects other than neural tube defects remains unclear. We utilized data from a large population-based survey to examine the association between folic acid supplementation and birth defects in Northwestern China. A total of 29,204 women with infants born between 2010 and 2013 were surveyed in Shaanxi province, Northwestern China, using a stratified multistage sampling method. Propensity scores were used to match 9,293 women with optimal folic acid supplementation with 9,293 women with nonoptimal folic acid supplementation, and the effects of optimal folic acid supplementation on birth defects were assessed by a conditional logistic regression model. After propensity score matching, the overall birth defect rate, cardiovascular system defect rate and nervous system defect rate for the women with optimal folic acid supplementation were lower than those for the women with nonoptimal folic acid supplementation (overall birth defects: OR = 0.71, 95% CI = 0.57-0.89, P = 0.003; cardiovascular system defects: OR = 0.65, 95% CI = 0.44-0.96, P = 0.032; nervous system defects: OR = 0.13, 95% CI = 0.02-0.99, P = 0.049). Optimal folic acid supplementation was associated with a decreased prevalence of birth defects, especially in the cardiovascular system and nervous system. Our findings have important implications for birth defect intervention with folic acid supplementation for countries with a high prevalence of birth defects, such as China.

Lack of periconceptional vitamins or supplements that contain folic acid and diabetes mellitus-associated birth defects.

OBJECTIVE: The purpose of this study was to examine the risk of birth defects in relation to diabetes mellitus and the lack of use of periconceptional vitamins or supplements that contain folic acid. STUDY DESIGN: The National Birth Defects Prevention Study (1997-2004) is a multicenter, population-based case-control study of birth defects (14,721 cases and 5437 control infants). Cases were categorized into 18 types of heart defects and 26 noncardiac birth defects. We estimated odds ratios for independent and joint effects of preexisting diabetes mellitus and a lack of periconceptional use of vitamins or supplements that contain folic acid. RESULTS: The pattern of odds ratios suggested an increased risk of defects that are associated with diabetes mellitus in the absence vs the presence of the periconceptional use of vitamins or supplements that contain folic acid. CONCLUSION: The lack of periconceptional use of vitamins or supplements that contain folic acid may be associated with an excess risk for birth defects due to diabetes mellitus.

[Indirect transplacental therapy of the fetus]. / Die indirekte transplazentare Therapie des Feten.

UNLABELLED: The paper is a review on the actual possibilities and indications of the transplacentar therapy of the fetus. At first some principles of the pharmacodynamics of the materno-placento-fetal unit are explained in order to enable an effective drug administration and reach therapeutic levels in the fetus. Common and less common diseases of the fetus and their therapy are exposed, such as the acceleration of lung maturation with corticosteroids, the cardioversion of tachycardias with digoxin and other antiarrhythmic drugs, the therapy of toxoplasmosis with pyrimethamine, the treatment of polyhydramnios using indomethacin, the therapy of very rare inborn errors of metabolism, the therapy of thrombocytopenia and the prevention of neural tube defects by folic acid supplementation. For these diseases the pathophysiologic background, the therapy rationale and possible side effects of therapy were exposed. Prior to an intrauterine therapy the perinatologist has to ask himself the 5 "W"- QUESTIONS: Which fetus to treat? Why to treat? When to treat? Who will treat? Way of treatment?

[Sigetin treatment of the developmental disorders induced in rabbit prenatal ontogeny by curtailment of the uteroplacental blood circulation]. / Lechenie sigetinom narushenii razvitiia, vyzvannykh v prenatal'nom ontogeneze krolikov sokrashcheniem matochno-platsentarnogo krovoobrashcheniia.

About 40 per cent of the uterine preplacental vessels were ligated in rabbits on the 11th or 18th days of gestation. Some of the female rabbits operated upon were given 5 mg of intravenous sigetin twice a day till the end of pregnancy. Investigation of the progeny development, the ability of learning at an age of about 6 months, in particular, showed a somewhat better development and ability of learning in the offsprings of female rabbits receiving sigetin.