Neither Preconceptional Weekly Multiple Micronutrient nor Iron-Folic Acid Supplements Affect Birth Size and Gestational Age Compared with a Folic Acid Supplement Alone in Rural Vietnamese Women: A Randomized Controlled Trial.

What Was Tested

This randomized controlled trial looks at Folic Acid and Iron.

Maternal nutritional status before and during early pregnancy plays a critical role in fetal growth and development.

Who Took Part

The abstract describes 5011 women taking part.

The age groups tagged for this paper are teenagers, young adults and adults, women only.

Group comparisons were done with the use of ANOVA or chi-square tests for both intention-to-treat (n = 1599) and per-protocol analyses (women consumed supplements ≥26 wk before conception; n = 824).

How the Study Was Run

The design is described as randomized and double-blind.

The women were allocated by chance, so the Folic Acid group and the comparison group should start out alike.

Neither the women nor the staff measuring them knew who was on Folic Acid, so expectations could not easily colour the readings.

Effect modification by baseline underweight or anemia status was tested with the use of generalized linear models.

What Was Measured

PubMed files the paper under topics including Anemia, Birth Weight, Body Composition, Folic Acid, Gestational Age, Iron and Micronutrients.

Author keywords: Vietnam, multiple micronutrient, preconception, randomized controlled trial, supplement and women of reproductive age.

What This Means in Plain Language

The paper is a randomized and double-blind study of Folic Acid and Iron in 5011 women.

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

The abstract goes on to report its results in about 7 sentences; this page does not restate them, so read the paper for the findings and their limits.

The publication is from 2016 (The Journal of nutrition), a journal based in United States.

More context: all human trials.