Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2003 Jun 1;119A(2):137-40.
doi: 10.1002/ajmg.a.20145.

Food fortification with folic acid and twinning among California infants

Affiliations

Food fortification with folic acid and twinning among California infants

Gary M Shaw et al. Am J Med Genet A. .

Abstract

This study sought to determine whether a change in twinning prevalence was associated with mandatory folic acid fortification. As of January 1998, it became mandatory in the United States that grain products be fortified with folic acid. The effectiveness of this fortification for neural tube defects has been explored, but other possible implications of fortification has not. We computed the prevalence of twinning among more than 2.5 million California births occurring from 1990 to 1999. The prevalence of twin births in California increased over the last decade with increases observed among most maternal race/ethnic, age, and parity groupings. Unadjusted prevalence measures did not reveal substantial increases in twinning prevalence among these groupings after the fortification period relative to the period immediately preceding it. Analyses that simultaneously adjusted for age, parity, race/ethnicity, sexes of twin pair (as a measure of zygosity), year of birth, and fortification period also did not reveal an association between fortification and twinning. Our results do not suggest a change in twinning prevalence associated with folic acid fortification of the US food supply among women delivering in California.

PubMed Disclaimer

Publication types

LinkOut - more resources