Health promotion in a primary health care setting. Neural tube defects and folate.

Primary care practitioners are ideally situated to carry out health promotion activities. Neural tube defects are of a fairly low incidence, but the consequences are tragic. They range from life long physical and often intellectual disabilities, to death at birth. Increased folate intake, either through eating folate rich foods or through supplementation, has been shown to reduce the incidence of neural tube defects in newborns by up to 75%. Encouraging all women of child-bearing age to increase their folate intake could thus prevent a significant number of neural tube defects occurring in the Australian population.