CLEVELAND -- Reducing the risk of some devastating birth defects can boil down to taking one vitamin a day.

PRENATAL CARE Tips: For Pregnant Women Prenatal Care: How To Get It Nutrition: Get Key Vitamins Library: Pregnancy & Childbirth FOLIC ACID Survey: Take Folic Acid? CDC: Why Is It Important? In Depth: Foods With Folic Acid Quiz: Folic Acid Smarts BIRTH DEFECTS March Of Dimes National Center On Birth Defects And Developmental Disabilities Birth Defect Research For Children

The trick is -- you have to take it before you get pregnant.

NewsChannel5's Alicia Booth reported that sometimes, new mothers find out about the importance of folic acid too late.

Ever since the government required more folic acid in the foods people eat every day, the number of neural tube birth defects has decreased by 19 percent.

The problem is, not enough women realize that if they're in their child-bearing years, they need to take folic acid now.

Janice Brewer, an obstetrician and gynecologist at Elyria Memorial Hospital, is on a mission.

"I don't think we've done a good job getting the message out to women," she said.

The message is, if you want a healthy baby someday, start taking folic acid now. If you don't, the risks are scary.

"Babies can develop spina bifida, which is an opening in the spine," Brewer said. "They can develop encephalosis, (which is the) opening of the skull with the brain exposed."

And those are just the survivable problems, according to experts.

April Baldwin is a stay-at-home mother who has her hands full. She already has two little boys, with no plans for another baby right now. But she's taking folic acid every day anyway.

She didn't know about the benefits when her 5-year-old was born, but she jumped right on it before she had her 2-year-old.

"I mean, you worry about every little thing, especially (when) you read the magazines," Baldwin said. "(If there's) something out there new, they (will) find (it)."

Most multivitamins have all the folic acid a person needs -- 400 micrograms a day.

A lot of foods have folic acid in them, too. In fact, Baldwin has quite a few of those foods in her fridge, including bread enriched with folic acid, pasta, eggs, leafy greens, orange juice, beans and even Fruit Loops.

And if you're thinking that there is no way you plan to get pregnant anytime soon, heed Brewer's warning.

"As we know, many pregnancies are not particularly planned, so a lot of women find themselves to be pregnant and haven't been getting enough folic acid," she said.

Women who take enough folic acid before their first six weeks of pregnancy may decrease their child's chance of having those birth defects by 75 percent.

Visit Elyria Memorial Hospital's Web site for more information on eating right before and during pregnancy.