Folate: The Baby Building Block You've Gotta Have

Folate is also known as vitamin B9. It’s super critical in the early formation of the neural tube of a fetus.

In fact, insufficient folate levels in the mother greatly increase the chances of deformities in the infant called neural tube defects (spina bifida is a neural tube defect you might have heard of before).

So what makes it so important?

Folate’s job is to shuttle single carbon atoms (which are full of hydrogens and oxygens) from one chemical compound to another. This makes it a vital part of building DNA.

Folate-assisted transfers are also essential for converting some amino acids into others. The ability to change one amino acid into another guarantees that the body has a steady supply of all amino acids (instead of only getting the amino acids that are in the foods we’re eating a lot of, and not getting the ones that are in the foods we’re not eating enough of).

That’s not the only thing that makes folate’s role in amino acid conversions so important…

What else?

Folate plays a role in recycling homocysteine, a potentially toxic amino acid, and turning it into methionine, a benign amino acid. Women with high homocysteine are more likely to have early miscarriages and severe high blood pressure during pregnancy (known as preeclampsia). So, getting extra folate is one way to keep homocysteine levels low.

But folate’s fertility roles go beyond protecting from neural tube defects, miscarriage, and preeclampsia…

What else?

Getting enough folate has also been proven to

make menstrual cycles more regular
increase chances of getting pregnant
increase the chances of having twins

Wait, twins?? Explain…

In several recent studies, women taking folic acid supplements (the synthetic form of folate) were more likely to have fraternal twins than those taking a placebo. Fraternal twins come from the fertilization of two separate eggs, meaning that two separate eggs were released during ovulation. This suggests that folic acid supplements somehow enhance women’s ovulation and the survival abilities of their embryos.

Wow! So which foods are high in folate?

Folate is found in lots of different fruits and veggies, as well as some organ meats. Here are some healthy foods that are loaded with it:

leafy greens (think cabbage, kale, spring greens, mustard greens, and spinach)
broccoli
asparagus
brussel sprouts
legumes (like chickpeas, kidney beans, lentils, and black-eyed peas)
seeds (like sunflower seeds and flax seeds)
beef liver
asparagus
eggs
citrus fruits
berries
avocado
turnips
beets
peas
bananas
Brewer’s Yeast
Nutritional Yeast
foods fortified with folic acid like enriched breads, flours, pasta, rice, and cereal

How much do I need?

We recommend you get about 600 mcg of folate from your food every day.

For reference, a serving of broccoli has about 52 mcg of folate. One-half cup of lentils has 179 mcg of folate.

Why so much?

Well, because folate is critical in the early formation of the neural tube of a fetus.

This formation of the neural tube begins almost immediately after you conceive (several weeks before it is possible for you to know for sure if you are pregnant).

So the only way to ensure you have sufficient folate for your baby’s development is to be consuming it before you know you are pregnant.

Thus if you are actively trying to conceive, we recommend you consume at least 600 mcg of folate from your food daily.

This is the only way you can guarantee that you will have sufficient folate levels at the moment you conceive. It ensures the embryo never runs low on folate during the time it’s growing but doesn’t yet have an established connection to your bloodstream.

There’s another reason 600 mcg might seem like a high number…

Which is…?

It’s roughly equal to just 300 mcg of folic acid.

Folic acid is just the synthetic form of folate. It’s used in fortified foods (like cereal and flour) and in supplements. Folic acid has a higher bioavailability than folate, which is the form of the vitamin that naturally occurs in foods.

When you account for the difference in bioavailability, 1 mcg of folic acid is roughly equal to about 2 mcg of folate. So, the numbers are going to seem higher when we talk about folate compared to folic acid.

So, why specifically 600 mcg of folate?

Because the Nurses’ Health Study found that women who got at least 700 mcg of folic acid from diet and supplements were 40-50% less likely to have had ovulatory infertility than women getting less than 300 mcg a day.

Once you get to your Prenatal Vitamins section, you’ll read about the importance of taking a daily supplement with at least 400 mcg of folic acid.

So, if you’ll be getting 400 mcg of folic acid from a supplement, you’ll need to get the remaining 300 mcg of folic acid (or 600 mcg folate) from food.

For now, work on getting at least 600 mcg of folate from your food every day. This amount of folate is also enough to counteract the harmful effects of BPA (remember this from your Endocrine Disruptors sections??)