Children's Emotional Intelligence Is Improved If Woman’s Take Folic Acid Supplements throughout Pregnancy
A pregnant woman when takes folic acids throughout their pregnancy gives birth to more emotionally stable children than those who don’t take folic acids supplements. Women can take 400 micrograms to ensure proper development of the brain. This also prevents spina bifida which is a condition in which the bones of the spine doesn’t form properly around the part of the body.
A team of researchers from the University of Ulster conducted a research in which they study the long-term effects of this supplement. In this study, they gave supplements of folic acids or 22 mothers but the 19 of these pregnant women took it only for first three months as per the recommended guidelines by NICE. Next, the mother was given a placebo.
One of the researchers named Dr. Cassidy told the annual conference of the British psychological society that Brighton that follow-up interviews at the age of seven found that children whose mother took the supplements during the entire 9 months of their pregnancy have a higher level of emotional intelligence and vocabulary. Emotional intelligence is the capacity of a person to be aware and control emotions.
Dr. Cassidy said: 'Given it has this positive effect we wanted to know whether it would have a positive effect beyond three months.
'We found there was an advantage for children whose mothers had taken folic acid for verbal IQ and reasoning compared to those who did not take the folic acid.
'We were also looking at emotional intelligence and resilience. We found significant benefits for the children whose mothers took folic acid,' he said.
He said that if further trials show the same outcome, then this would be a strongevidenence for advising mothers to keep taking the folic acid at the recommended level after the first 12 weeks of pregnancy.
He said: 'There is no evidence for any downsides with the amounts people were taking, on the basis that the only evidence for damage is if you take an excessive amount, and given that it's possible there is growing evidence there are some beneficial effects mothers should continue with the recommended amount.'
He added that positive effects of folic acids were not known, but it is suspicious that it promotes language development in the brain.
He said: 'In terms of how it affects emotional intelligence, we are speculating the effect on language development leads to better communication with the parent and leads to more child-parent interaction.'
The next thing researchers would be investigating will be the study of the effect on children of 10 years of age.
