The role of folic acid in preventing neural tube defects in Iraqi pregnant women: A cross sectional study

ABSTRACT

Folate deficiency in pregnant has been linked to neural tube defects in a substantial to neural tube defects in a substantial amount of medical literatures and has become a well-known fact among doctors; however, the knowledge of pregnant ladies about this association is poorly evaluated in our community. Vitamin and mineral deficiency is common among people in developing countries;however, the awareness of those people about such deficits and their associating compications is lacking. This study was conducted to evaluate the knowledge, attitude and practice of a cohort of pregnant ladies in Al-Diwaniyiah province in Mid-Euphrates region in Iraq. The present cross sectional study included 30 pregnant ladies. The study started on November 2018 and ended on January 2019. The study was carried out inAl-Diwaniyah maternity and child teaching hospital in Al-Diwaniyah province in Mid-Euphrates region, Iraq. The knowledge, attitude and practice of women regardin folie acid supplementation during early pregnancy was assessed according to 7 knowledge questions, 5 attitude questions and 5 practice questions. These questions and the demopgraphic data concerning women enrolled in the current study were obtained. The results of current study revealed poor knowledge about the advantage of folic acid in preventing congenital abnormalities was very obvious since ost of responses to the 7 questions concerning knowledge domain were within strongy disagreeing, disagree and neutral scores. Majority of response within attitude domain were in the form of disagree and strongly disagree. No correlation was found between any of the demain and the demographic characteristies of the study sample. Current study concluded that in Iraqi community, the knowledge and attitude of women toward the benefit of folie acid during early pregnancy in preventing neural tube defect iis poor; however, they practice well with this regard not due to their knowledge but because of the policy adopted by governmental antenatal care clinics and institutes (AU)