Blog： Supplement
An international team of researchers studied 493 Israeli families who had had a previous pregnancy which was affected by NTD and 516 families from the Ukraine who had had a pregnancy affected by Down’s.
Their findings were published in The Lancet.
It was found there were more than five times the number of pregnancies affected by Down’s syndrome, a total of 11 in 1,492 pregnancies in the NTD compared with 1.87 expected for women of the same age.
There was also an increase in NTD cases in the families at a higher risk of Down’s syndrome.
Seven cases were seen in 1,847 pregnancies, compared with an expected incidence of 1.37.
Writing in The Lancet, the researchers from Israel, the Ukraine and the UK recommended taking extra folic acid before conception, and in the first two months of pregnancy.
They added: “The risks seen in this study could be helpful in genetic counselling, including that given during antenatal screening for birth defects.
