The influence of folic acid supplement on the outcome of pregnancies in the county of Funen in Denmark. Part I.

What Was Tested

Researchers studied Folic Acid in this randomized controlled trial publication.

To determine whether a supplement of folic acid given preconceptionally or early in pregnancy had any influence on, birth weight, incidence of preterm labour, low birth weight and small for gestational age.

Who Took Part

The study group was 14,021 women.

PubMed tags the participants as women only.

A total of 8184 women took part in the double-blind randomized trial: 2310 had a supplement of folic acid without being randomized and 2721 women received no folic acid supplement.

How the Study Was Run

In design terms this was a randomized and double-blind study.

Random assignment meant chance, not the researchers, decided who got Folic Acid and who got the comparison, which limits bias.

As a double-blind Folic Acid study, the assignments were hidden from both participants and investigators until the end.

No information regarding the use of folic acid was available in 806 pregnancies.

What Was Measured

PubMed files the paper under topics including Birth Weight, Denmark, Dietary Supplements, Folic Acid, Incidence, Infant, Small for Gestational Age and Obstetric Labor, Premature.

What This Means in Plain Language

The paper is a randomized and double-blind study of Folic Acid in 14,021 women.

With several hundred people or more, it is a fairly large study for this kind of research.

Its findings take up roughly 3 sentences of the abstract and are left out here on purpose; the source paper is the place to read them.

The publication is from 1999 (European journal of obstetrics, gynecology, and reproductive biology), a journal based in Ireland.

More context: all human trials.