RadioScope Outside the Box RTÉ 1, June 22nd There are 40 children born every year in Ireland with spina bifida and in the 1970s that figure was a staggering five times higher.
"What changed?" asked presenter Olan McGowan to his panel on Outside the Box, which included Dr Peadar Kirk, a public health doctor, Catherine Smith, a parent of a teenager with spina bifida, Helen Riney, a woman with the condition, and Nick Killian from the Irish Association for Spina Bifida and Hydrocephalus, which represents people with this condition.
The answer given was the greater awareness of the role that folic acid plays in the neurological development of the foetus.
Just 400 mg of folic acid can prevent up to 70 per cent of spina bifida and, as the congenital condition develops at around five to five-and-a-half weeks of pregnancy, it will usually have occurred before the woman even knows she's pregnant.
"So every sexually active woman should be taking folic acid?" asked McGowan in a typically frank question, in a programme that tends not to pussy foot around issues.
There was some discussion about the necessity to fortify basic foodstuffs such as bread and wheat and to increase awareness of the importance of folic acid through a public information campaign.
While there is no doubt that the decrease in spina bifida is down to greater awareness of the importance of folic acid, it would have been interesting to hear the views of the panellists as to whether the falling numbers could in any way be linked to the increase in the availability of screening for birth defects during pregnancy.
That said, McGowan is a superb programme presenter, sympathetic to an extent that week after week his interviewees open up to him and respond to his soft-spoken style.
The programme is for and about people with disability but the broad and varied approach adopted by McGowan and his producer Gerry McArdle make it accessible to anyone - particularly anyone interested in social and health policy.
The aim in this week's programme was to demystify spina bifida and in a short half an hour it did that.
It is one of the more serious malformations, according to Kirk, the public health doctor, and typically people with spina bifida have trouble walking and may also have incontinence.
If the condition has prompted hydrocephalus, or water on the brain, there could also be learning difficulties.
Helen Riney was born with spina bifida but not its attendant condition of hydrocephalus.
Even after gaining a degree in applied languages and a post-graduate qualification in IT and business - making her sound like a typically qualified Celtic cub - she still had great difficulty gaining employment. She now works in UCD.
For panellist Catherine Smith, the arrival of her daughter 14 years ago with the condition was a complete shock - it was in a pre-scanning era and the mother of three had no idea there was something wrong.
"We were told that Sara had 24 hours to live," she said.
"She had all her fingers and toes, my other kids didn't see anything wrong."
Sarah is now a teenager with all the drama that entails except in the case of people with spina bifida, the drama starts earlier than in other children as they typically reach puberty at the early age of nine.
Catherine, like many parents confronted with the disability, is now very involved with what sounds like a very vibrant Irish Association for Spina Bifida and Hydrocephalus.
The website for the Irish Association for Spina Bifida and Hydrocephalus is www.iasbah.ie
