High Maternal RBC Folate reduces risk of congenital heart disease in Newborns, finds study

Higher levels of RBC Folate in pregnant women are linked to decreased risk of congenital heart disease in newborns as per a new study that was published in the journal Annals of Internal Medicine. Higher RBC folate levels than currently recommended for neural tube defects may be necessary for preventing CHD in newborns. 

Periconceptional folic acid supplementation is generally recommended for the prevention of neural tube defects, but it has also been suggested to protect against congenital heart disease (CHD). Maternal red blood cell (RBC) folate is the gold standard biomarker for folate exposure but the association between the RBC folate and CHD risk is lacking. Hence researchers from Shanghai, China province conducted a Prospective, nested, case-control study to investigate the association between periconceptional maternal RBC folate and offspring CHD risk at 29 maternity institutions in 12 districts of Greater Shanghai, China. 

The participants included 197 mothers of offspring with CHD and 788 individually matched mothers of unaffected offspring from the Shanghai Preconception Cohort (SPCC) and were randomized by 1-sample Mendelian randomization using the methylenetetrahydrofolate reductase (MTHFR) C677T as the genetic instrument. Maternal RBC folate was measured before or at early pregnancy and conditional logistic regression after adjustment for covariates was used to estimate the odds ratio.