In an ideal world all doctors would thoroughly test pregnant women or those trying to conceive for B12 deficiency. If you've had trouble conceiving, or lost pregnancies through miscarriage, you should have your vitamin B12 levels checked. Very Important: DO NOT SUPPLEMENT BEFORE TESTING - THIS MAY SKEW RESULTS. Up to date education of B12 deficiency is limited and it may be that your nurse/midwife may never have been taught the importance of B12 deficiency. Many only learn about it when they are diagnosed. The demands of pregnancy on B12 deficient patient are huge but sadly many doctors incorrectly believe B12 injections are unsafe in pregnancy when the opposite is in fact true. B12 deficiency must be treated in a pregnancy, it is as important as folate or iron deficiency. Some manufacturers of hydroxocobalamin state that you should ask your doctor or nurse for advice before being given B12 injections. This causes worry and confusion for a mother and a reluctance to treat in a doctor lacking correct knowledge of the condition.
Please make sure that your doctors understands that continuing treatment for B12 deficiency and pernicious anaemia must continue throughout pregnancy. B12 is non toxic and cannot be overdosed. Folate supplementation prior to conception could mask a potential deficiency. Health professionals need to be aware of this fact in order to save many couples facing potentially expensive, unnecessary treatments or remaining childless. Low B12 also has links to post natal depression and pre eclampsia. Click here to read about Inborn errors of B12 metabolism. Information below supplied with kind permission of Sally M. Pacholok R.N. and Dr. Jeffrey J. Stuart. Pregnancy represents a huge challenge for those who have an undiagnosed B12 deficiency, the growing baby will take all the B12 supplies it needs leaving the mother desperately short. In addition, the use of nitrous oxide during labour can completely inactivate any remaining supply of B12. Pregnant women at greatest risk for deficiency include vegans and vegetarians, those with autoimmune pernicious anaemia or malabsorption syndromes such as Crohn's disease or coeliac disease.
Those with a history of gastric bypass for weight loss, strict dieting, anorexia, or bulimia. B12 deficiency and Miscarriage: Far More Common Than Doctors Think A recurring theme in medical literature is that B12 deficiency is a fairly rare cause of miscarriage or stillbirth. The evidence, however, suggests otherwise. One recent study, for instance, compared thirty-six women who'd suffered recurrent foetal loss to forty women who'd carried healthy babies to term. The researchers found that 31 percent of the women who'd lost several babies had high homocysteine levels. (Elevated homocysteine is caused by low levels of folate, B12 and/or vitamin B6, and is easily treated with these vitamins). Sixteen percent of the women who'd suffered recurrent foetal loss carried two copies of the MTHFR gene that causes abnormally high homocysteine levels, and three of the women had overt B12 deficiency. Click here to read more. B12 deficiency and Neural Tube Defects When mothers are deficient in B12 the damage to their babies starts in the womb.
You've probably heard of neural tube defects (NTDs), which are very common, severe birth defects occurring when the brain or spinal cord fails to form correctly. Low levels of folic acid increase the risk for NTDs which is why doctors now ensure that their pregnant patients get plenty of this vitamin. However, research strongly implicates low B12 levels as a factor in NTDs, which isn't surprising, since folic acid and B12 work hand in hand. Tests that could save a mother's sanity and a child's life More research is needed to determine the incidence of B12 deficiency in women with post natal depression or post natal psychosis. In the meantime, we believe that all women diagnosed with post natal mental illness should undergo screening, including serum B12 and urinary MMA tests. Pregnancy can dramatically worsen a pre-existing B12 deficiency, because B12 is transferred to the growing foetus throughout pregnancy, and prenatal vitamins contain only six micrograms of this nutrient (compared to the 1,000 micrograms needed to treat deficiency).
Pregnant women at greatest risk for deficiency include vegans and vegetarians, those with autoimmune pernicious anaemia or malabsorption syndromes such as Crohn's disease (an inflammatory intestinal disease) or coeliac disease, and those with a history of gastric bypass for weight loss, strict dieting, anorexia, or bulimia. However, any women who develops symptoms of mental illness following pregnancy needs B12 screening. Mothers with depleted B12 stores... who exclusively breast feed their babies unknowingly put them at great risk for developmental disability or even death. This is a common cause of B12 problems in infants; one study for instance, found that a group of six infants became ill after being nursed by vegetarian mothers. (The other half were born to mothers with undiagnosed pernicious anaemia). Vegetarian and vegan mothers are devastated and feel tremendous guilt when their children suffer harm due to B12 deficiency, but in reality, most of these tragedies are the fault of doctors who fail to screen pregnant and nursing mothers for this deficiency - and who then often misdiagnose these women's children as intellectually disabled or autistic, rather than considering B12 deficiency when the infants lose their speech
, social skills and motor skills. Click here to read relevant medical journals. Please click here to read about B12 and male and female infertility. Birth Defects Linked to Low Vitamin B12 Study Shows B12 Deficiency May Raise Risk of Spina Bifida and Other Neural Tube Defects March 2, 2009 -- Women who don't get enough vitamin B12 may have a higher risk of giving birth to a baby with a potentially disabling or fatal birth defect. A new study shows that women with vitamin B12 deficiency in early pregnancy were up to five times more likely to have a child with neural tube defects, such as spina bifida, compared to women with high levels of vitamin B12. "Vitamin B12 is essential for the functioning of the nervous system and for the production of red blood cells," says Duane Alexander, MD, director of the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, which funded the study. "The results of this study suggest that women with low levels of B12 not only may risk health problems of their own, but also may increase the chance that their children may be born with a serious birth defect."
Researchers say the results suggest that women of childbearing age, women in early pregnancy, and women who hope to become pregnant should take steps to ensure their diet includes foods rich in vitamin B12 or take supplements to reduce their risk of vitamin B12 deficiency and birth defects. Vitamin B12 is found in meat, poultry, milk, eggs, and other fortified foods. Vegans and vegetarians, and women who have intestinal disorders that prevent them from absorbing vitamin B12, are most susceptible to vitamin B12 deficiency. Vegetarian sources of vitamin B12 include fortified breakfast cereals and some fortified vegetarian "meat" products like veggie burgers. Vitamin B 12 and Pregnancy Neural tube defects refer to a group of birth defects that affect the brain and spinal cord. The defects include spina bifida, which can cause partial paralysis, and anencephaly, a fatal condition in which the brain and skull are severely underdeveloped. The synthetic form of the vitamin folate, folic acid, can significantly reduce the risk of neural tube defects.
With food fortification, the incidence of neural tube defects has decreased dramatically. Researchers say these results suggest it may also play a role in birth defect prevention. In the study, published in Pediatrics, researchers compared vitamin B12 levels in blood samples taken from three groups of Irish women between 1983 and 1990 who were pregnant with or previously had a child with a neural tube defect to those in women with healthy pregnancies. The researchers took into account folate levels in their analysis. In all three groups, women with low vitamin B12 levels (below 250 ng/L) were up to three times more likely to have a child with a neural tube defect than those with higher levels. Women with vitamin B12 deficiency (levels below 150 ng/L) had the highest risk -- five times higher than that of women with higher levels (greater than 400 ng/L). Researchers say further studies are needed to confirm these results, but the findings suggest that having vitamin B12 levels above 300 ng/L before becoming pregnant may reduce a child's risk of birth defects.