Long term follow up of children born to mothers with periconceptional multivitamin supplementation

Editor,—Before recommending periconceptional folic acid-containing multivitamin supplementation universally for the prevention of neural tube defects one would also want to be sure that it was doing no harm. A UK study showed the over-representation of worries and anxiety among children at age 7–10 years born to mothers with periconceptional multivitamin supplementation.1 In our previous study based on a short term postnatal follow up of 3356 infants (mean age 11 months) born to mothers supplemented with multivitamin or placebo-like trace element2 in the periconceptional period, the results of the tests of mental and behavioural development were similar in …