When we hold a newborn baby for the first time, we imagine them clean and new, unmarked by life.
In fact, they have already been shaped by the world and by their mothers.
New scientific discoveries are revealing that the nine months spent in the womb profoundly affect a baby’s health and well-being, well into adulthood.
Indeed, much of what a pregnant woman encounters in daily life — the food and drink she consumes, the emotions and stresses she feels, the exercise she takes, and even the job she does — is shared in some fashion with her unborn child.
Early beginnings: A baby's health and wellbeing is profoundly affected by the nine months spent in the womb
Such new findings fundamentally question our assumption that major illnesses — from heart disease, to diabetes, to cancer — are caused by a combination of bad genes and bad adult habits.
In fact, there is a third risk factor of which we’ve taken too little account — our experiences in the womb, thanks to the lifestyle our mothers followed when pregnant.
Remarkable discoveries are being unearthed about this by Project Viva, a Harvard Medical School study of 2,670 pregnant women, which began in 1999.
Mothers’ diets and weight are particularly important, it shows, in raising a child’s risk of being overweight. This relationship persists into the child’s adolescent years.
Compared with the teenagers of women who had moderate weight gain during pregnancy, the adolescent children of women who had excessive weight gain weighed more and were more likely to be obese.
Why? One possibility is that the bad food choices women make during pregnancy can influence the later food tastes of their children.
Give them a good start: A pregnant woman's healthy lifestyle can dramatically shape her unborn child's future
In an experiment with rats, published in the British Journal Of Nutrition, Stephanie Bayol and her colleagues at the Royal Veterinary College, in London, found that the offspring of mothers who’d been fed on junk food were 95 per cent more likely to overeat than those whose mothers had eaten healthy food, consuming around a fifth more calories a day.
But there is a positive side to this effect: a good diet might preset a baby’s tastes for healthy food for life.
Research suggests human foetuses can experience tastes and smells in the womb; by seven months, the foetus’s taste buds are fully developed. And babies seem to prefer these familiar tastes once they are out in the world.
In one 2001 experiment, carried out at the Monell Chemical Senses Centre, in Philadelphia, a group of pregnant women were asked to drink carrot juice during their third trimester; another group of pregnant women drank water.
Six months later, the women’s infants were offered cereal mixed with carrot juice. The babies of the carrot-juice-drinking women consumed more carrot-flavoured cereal and appeared to like its taste more.
And that’s just the start of it. The food eaten by a pregnant mother can also influence her baby’s long-term health.
Project Viva studies have found the children of women who have a higher intake of vitamin D during pregnancy — found in liver, dairy products and eggs — were less likely to show early signs of asthma.
Moreoever, a diet high in greens can apparently help to protect a baby against cancer.
Tests on pregnant mice at Oregon State University have shown that the babies of those who ate a chemical derived from cruciferous vegetables such as broccoli, cabbage, and brussels sprouts during pregnancy were much less likely to get cancer, even when exposed to a known carcinogen.
David Williams, the principal researcher, can imagine a day when pregnant women are prescribed a dietary supplement that will protect their future children from cancer. ‘It’s not science fiction,’ he says. ‘I think that’s where we’re headed.’
Certainly, the opposite effect — suffering malnutrition in the womb — presents a lasting danger for babies. It is increasingly linked to ills such as heart attacks and diabetes later in life. This was first seen in people conceived during the Nazis’ starvation of the Netherlands in 1944, when many expectant mothers survived on just 400-to-800 calories a day.
David Barker, a British doctor who has pioneered investigations into links between mothers’ diets and babies’ health, says: ‘One explanation is that foetuses are making the best of a bad job.
‘When nutrients are scarce, they divert them towards the really critical organ — the brain — and away from other organs, such as the heart and liver.’
Getting fit for the future: Research says exercising while pregnant can help a baby's heart rate
This keeps the baby alive in the short term, he says, but the bill comes due later in life, when the heart, deprived early on, becomes more vulnerable to disease.
‘But I believe that’s not all that’s going on,’ Barker continues. ‘I think that foetuses are actually taking cues from the womb environment and tailoring their physiology accordingly. They’re preparing themselves for the world they will encounter on the beyond the womb.’
The foetus adjusts its metabolism and other processes in anticipation of the environment that awaits it, Barker says, whether it’s the parched desert of Ethiopia or the bounteous aisles of an upmarket supermarket. And the basis of the foetus’s predilection is what its mother eats.
The damaging effects of poor nutrition in the womb have been made even more plain by research on the effects of fasting during the Islamic holy month of Ramadan.
Women who fasted while pregnant — gave birth to babies who were born earlier and had lower birth weights.
But womb-food is not the only key to a baby’s lifetime chances. Exercise may also have a vital effect on a baby’s future health.
Foetuses whose mothers performed moderate aerobic exercise, at least three times a week, showed the same benefits as their mothers — significantly lower heart rates and hearts which responded more healthily to physical demands — compared with foetuses whose mothers didn’t exercise, according to a study at Kansas City University of Medicine and Biosciences.
Science is also now revealing how a mother’s psychology can actually affect a baby. A pregnant mother’s level of stress and depression can play a particularly crucial role in influencing her baby’s developing brain and nervous system, potentially shaping the way he or she will manage their own emotions later in life.
Researchers at Columbia University, in the U.S., asked pregnant mothers to take intelligence tests while their unborn babies were scanned. All the mothers’ heart rates went up as they tried to pass the tests. In women who were depressed or anxious, their foetuses’ heart rates also rose.
Says Professor Caroline Monk, leading the research: ‘That difference suggests that these foetuses are already more sensitive to stress. It could be that the foetuses’ nervous systems are already being shaped by their mothers’ emotional states.’
To add to this research, The National Children’s Study, in the U.S., is recruiting 100,000 pregnant women to track their children from before birth to the age of 21, interviewing the mothers about their habits and, during pregnancy, sampling their hair, blood, saliva and urine, and testing the water and dust in their homes.
Give them a good start: A pregnant woman's healthy lifestyle can dramatically shape her unborn child's future.
Getting fit for the future: Research says exercising while pregnant can help a baby's heart rate
Adapted from Origins: How The Nine Months Before Birth Shape The Rest Of Our Lives, by Annie Murphy Paul.
Disclaimer
The sole purpose of these blogs is to provide information about the tradition of ayurveda. This information is not intended for use in the diagnosis, prevention or cure of any disease. If you have any serious, acute or chronic health concern, please consult a trained doctor/health professional who can fully assess your needs and address them effectively. If you are seeking the medical advice of a trained Ayurvedic expert, call us or e mail.
Dr Unnati Chavda
(Promoting pregnancy wellness)
www.ayurvedapanchkarma.in
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