Document is current

Article History

Received: 12 November 2025

Accepted: 14 August 2026

First Online: 26 September 2026

Declarations

Ethics approval and consent to participate: The study was conducted in accordance with the guidelines of the ethics committees listed below. Ethical clearance was obtained from the Institutional Ethics Committee (IEC) of the University of Delhi (Ref. No./ANTH./2019/3889/16) dated 12.12.2019 and from the Lady Hardinge Medical College and Smt. Sucheta Kriplani Hospital, New Delhi (LHMC/IEC/2020/10) dated 10.02.2020, in accordance with the Declaration of Helsinki and national guidelines for research involving human participants. Both approvals were granted for the parent ICMR-funded project “Folate metabolism in pregnancy progression and its outcome: a follow up observational genetic and epigenetic study” (Grant No. 5/7/143/MH/Adhoc/2022-RBMCH), under which the present sub-study was conducted. Data collection (April 2023–June 2024) was carried out within the scope of these approvals. Written informed consent, provided in both English and Hindi, was obtained from all participants prior to recruitment.

Consent for publication: Not applicable, as the manuscript does not contain any individual person’s identifying details, images, or videos.

Competing interests: The authors declare no competing interests.