A leading obstetrician has called on the Government to fortify foods with folic acid in an effort to reduce the number of babies born with spinal defects.
The Department of Health said yesterday it was actively considering the addition of folic aid to all flour.
Dr Seán Daly, Master of the Coombe Women's Hospital, said the current folic acid awareness campaigns were not working because so many pregnancies were unplanned.
Women did not have the opportunity to take folic acid before conception and in the early stages of pregnancy because they did not know they were pregnant.
Of the 15,000 deliveries at the Coombe hospital in 2001-02, an average of 36 per cent were unplanned, Dr Daly said.
"Added to that, our research showed that those women who had planned pregnancies did not take the requisite dosage," he said. "Those findings are for just one maternity hospital and there is likely to be a similar pattern throughout the country. The reality is that public awareness campaigns are not making a difference."
Medical research has found that the rate of neural tube defects such as spina bifida and anencephaly could be considerably reduced if mothers took the recommended dosage of folic acid in the early stages of pregnancy.
Because the spine is formed so early in pregnancy defects could be present before a woman even realises she is pregnant, so all women of child-bearing age are advised to take folic acid.
Some cereals are already fortified with the supplement, while certain foods such as green leafy vegetables are also high in folic acid.
