Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what research his Department has commissioned on the causes and consequences of neural tube defect-affected pregnancies.

The Department has not recently commissioned specific research on the causes and consequences of neural tube defect-affected pregnancies.

The Department funds the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR). A pilot randomised controlled trial led by researchers at the NIHR Biomedical Research Centre at Great Ormond Street Hospital and University College London suggests that women at risk of having children with neural tube defects may be able to reduce this risk by taking inositol (Vitamin B8) as well as folic acid during pregnancy. The findings were published in February in the British Journal of Nutrition.