Folic acid is important, but take care not to overdo it

One thing experts agree on is that all women of childbearing age should absolutely get 400 micrograms of folic acid through food, supplements or both. Pregnant women should take 600 micrograms daily, adds Janis Biermann, a health educator at the March of Dimes in White Plains, N.Y. Breast-feeding mothers should get 500 micrograms. And pregnant or regularly breast-feeding women who have already had a child with a brain and spinal cord defect should take 1 milligram (1,000 micrograms).

For those reasons and others, nutrition researchers continue to stress the importance of a balanced diet that is rich in natural sources of folate, including spinach, orange juice, lentils and other beans, because those foods are healthy for all sorts of other reasons too.

For a chart on the amount of folic acid/folate in foods, go to ods.od.nih.gov/factsheets/folate.asp.