Excessive alcohol consumption can lead to mitochondrial damage, and nutritional deficiencies like vitamin B6, iron, and folate, which affects the mitochondria's ability to form heme.
Other risk factors for having a child with spina bifida include obesity, poorly controlled diabetes, and taking medications that interfere with folate metabolism, like certain anti-seizure medications.
Now, the exact cause of all three types of spina bifida isn't known, but there are known risk factors like folate or Vitamin B9 deficiency during fetal development.
It seemed that due to insufficient folate, Kim Robbins was born with a hemangioma on his back which turned out to be a neural tube defect — effectively a hole in his spinal column.