American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, Vol 26, 707-714, Copyright © 1973 by The American Society for Clinical Nutrition, Inc.

Folate content of diets in pregnancy: comparison of diets collected at home and diets prepared from dietary records

¹ From the Haematology Division, McGill University Medical Clinic, Royal Victoria Hospital, Montreal, Canada

Ten pregnant women attending an outpatient clinic collected duplicates of all food eaten at home for 4 days, and subsequently kept 7-day dietary records from which diets were prepared and assayed. The mean daily folate content assayed in food collected at home was 206 µg (free) and 242 µg (total). The folate assayed in diets prepared in the laboratory from dietary records did not correlate with that in diets collected at home. The folate calculated in diets (based on existing tables) was lower than assayed, but correlated with the assayed results. The mean calculated intake of nutrients based upon the dietary records was similar to that of a large group studied previously, in which low folates were found in 50% of the subjects and megaloblastic or macrogranulocytic abnormalities in the bone marrow were found in 26%. This suggests that a daily intake during pregnancy of 206, µg (free) and 242 µg (total) food folate is associated with a high incidence of folate deficiency but a low incidence of frank megaloblastic anemia.

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