Folic acid will be added to bread to stop birth defects

ALL flour will be fortified with folic acid to prevent hundreds of babies being born with defects, it was reported last night.

Downing Street is understood to have backed the measure following a long-running campaign by doctors and baby health campaigners.

But critics warned the ‘mass medication’ of bread without the population’s consent was an invasion of their human rights.

Ministers are expected to announce the policy within weeks. Advisers have reportedly convinced them it will reduce the risk of babies suffering spina bifida and other conditions which involve severe disability or death.

The move is a significant U-turn as ministers in successive governments have ignored repeated pleas on the issue.

A key official said Theresa May, who was opposed, has been persuaded to change her mind, The Guardian reported.

Medical groups and health charities welcomed the decision to instruct flour makers to start adding folic acid to products.

Kate Steele, of the charity Shine, which helps families affected by neural tube defects, said: ‘Mandatory fortification will be a gamechanger. It will mean a major positive impact for the well-being of babies born in the future.’

Fortification is already used in more than 80 countries. In the US, there has been an estimated 23 per cent drop in neural tube defects since the policy started in 1998. Taking enough folic acid in pregnancy is thought to cut the risk of a baby suffering a neural tube defect by up to 70 per cent.

Birth defects also include anencephaly, in which the foetus develops without a major portion of its brain, skull and scalp, and dies in the womb or shortly after birth.

Britain is believed to have the highest rate of neural tube defects in europe. It is estimated that two pregnant women a day in the UK have an abortion after doctors have identified the problem.

every week, two women give birth to a child with a neural tube defect, often spina bifida, which means they will spend their lives in a wheelchair.

Official advice is to take 400mg of folic acid a day for the first 12 weeks of pregnancy. But many women fail to take enough.

Dan Poulter, a former Tory health minister who is also an nHS doctor, welcomed the move.

He added ‘vested business interests’ had prevented it before by claiming it would cost too much.

Alison Tedstone, Public Health england’s chief nutritionist, said fortification ‘is an effective and safe measure to reduce the number of pregnancies affected by neural tube defects’.

A Scottish Government spokesman said: ‘Scottish ministers have asked the UK Government to introduce mandatory folic acid fortification in flour.

‘The Scottish Government has provided free vitamins to all pregnant women since April 2017.’