SynthesisMaternal & child nutrition2020
Maternal folic acid supplementation and infant birthweight in low- and middle-income countries: A systematic review.
Synthesis in Maternal & child nutrition, 2020. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. An erratum has been issued. Cited by 15 papers, 3 of them syntheses that pooled it.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
15 citing papers in PubMed, 3 syntheses or guidelines pooled it, 29 citations in OpenAlex.
- Does previous pregnancy experience improve folic acid supplementation uptake? A systematic review and meta-analysis.BMJ open · 2026Pooled it
- Evaluating agreement between individual nutrition randomised controlled trials and cohort studies - a meta-epidemiological study.BMC medicine · 2025Pooled it
- Maternal folic acid supplementation and infant birthweight in low- and middle-income countries: A systematic review.Maternal & child nutrition · 2020Pooled it
- Effect modification of prenatal folic acid supplementation on the associations of pre-pregnancy BMI and gestational weight gain with offspring birth weight: a large prospective cohort study.European journal of nutrition · 2026Article
- Preconception malnutrition among women and girls in south Asia: prevalence, determinants, and association with pregnancy and birth outcomes.The Lancet regional health. Southeast Asia · 2025Review
- Evaluating agreement between evidence from randomised controlled trials and cohort studies in nutrition: a meta-research replication study.European journal of epidemiology · 2024Article
- Predictors of birth weight in pregnant women with malaria: a prospective cohort facility-based study in Webuye-Kenya.BMC pregnancy and childbirth · 2024Article
- Association between Iron-Folic Acid Supplementation during Pregnancy and Maternal and Infant Anemia in West Java, Indonesia: A Mixed-Method Prospective Cohort Study.The American journal of tropical medicine and hygiene · 2024Article
- Epigenetic Genome Modifications during Pregnancy: The Impact of Essential Nutritional Supplements on DNA Methylation.Nutrients · 2024Review
- [Association between periconceptional supplementation of folic acid or multiple-micronutrients containing folic acid and preterm delivery in women].Beijing da xue xue bao. Yi xue ban = Journal of Peking University. Health sciences · 2023Article
- The gut microbiome and early-life growth in a population with high prevalence of stunting.Nature communications · 2023Article
- Effect of personalized home-based support for pregnant women on pregnancy outcomes: a cluster randomized trial.Journal of public health in Africa · 2022Article
- National and subnational trends of birthweight in Peru: Pooled analysis of 2,927,761 births between 2012 and 2019 from the national birth registry.Lancet regional health. Americas · 2021Article
- CORRIGENDUM.Maternal & child nutrition · 2021Article
- Development and Testing of the Comprehensive Prenatal Care Index: Relationship With Preterm Birth and Small for Gestational Age Across Racial and Ethnic Groups.Journal of midwifery & women's healthArticle
Corrections and comments
- Erratum issuedCORRIGENDUM.2021
Authors and funding
6 authors at 2 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
Abstract
The relationship between maternal folic acid supplementation in pregnancy and infant birthweight has not been well described in low- and middle-income countries. We conducted a systematic review and meta-analysis of the current evidence of the association between folic acid supplementation in pregnancy on three primary outcomes: the incidence of low birthweight, small for gestational age, and mean birthweight. Seventeen studies were identified, which satisfied the inclusion criteria, covering a total of 275,421 women from 13 cohort studies and four randomized controlled trials. For the primary outcome of mean birthweight (n = 9), the pooled mean difference between folic acid and control groups was 0.37 kg (95% confidence interval [CI]: 0.24 to 0.50), and this effect was larger in the randomized controlled trials (0.56, 95% CI: 0.15 to 0.97, n = 3). The pooled odds ratio was 0.59 for low birthweight (95% CI: 0.47 to 0.74, n = 10) among folic acid supplementation versus control. The pooled odds ratio for the association with small for gestational age was 0.63 (95% CI: 0.39 to 1.01, n = 5). Maternal folic acid supplementation in low- and middle-income countries was associated with an increased mean birthweight of infants and decreases in the incidence of low birthweight and small for gestational age.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.