§ Sir Bernard Braineasked the Secretary of State for Social Services if he will introduce measures to ensure that all pregnant women who are considered to be at risk of having a spina bifida child are given multivitamin pills during their pregnancy in order to reduce the likelihood of their child being born handicapped.
§ Mr. John PattenThe advice of the Medical Research Council is that the value of giving extra vitamins to women at risk of having a baby with neural tube defects can be determined only by a large-scale clinical trial. The randomised trial which has now begun has the 549W Department's full support. Until its findings are known we cannot be sure if multivitamin supplements before or during pregnancy do in fact reduce the likelihood of recurrence of an affected pregnancy, and if the offer of extra vitamins to all women at risk is justified.