Diet in Pregnancy

Latest research is finding that what you eat when you are pregnant will not affect your baby but it will affect your grandchild. 

(Dr Christopher Kuzawa, Chigago).

Contrary to popular belief, calorie intake during pregnancy has little impact on the size of the baby at birth.

What does seem to affect the baby is what Mum got when she was in the uterus and when she was an infant. i.e. what Granny ate in pregnancy and what Granny fed Mum in infancy.

I find this interesting and annoying.

Being now at the pensioner stage of life I am soon to be a grandmother.

When I was at the mother stage I went through all the trauma and guilt -worrying about everything I ate and how it would affect my children.

Now - I thought smugly - it is the turn of my children to go through that.

Not at all - it seems the guilt is all back with me again. 

It is interesting because it is adding to the information becoming available, about the importance of what goes on in the uterus and in early infancy. 

If a pregnant mother is living in a time of famine and she is starving, this information is transmitted to the baby in her womb and that baby becomes genetically programmed to be careful of nutrients. To be careful about how much is passed to a future baby during pregnancy.

If a pregnant mother is living in a time of plentiful food and she eats well - this information is transmitted to her baby and it becomes genetically programmed to be more generous about nutrients passing to a future baby during pregnancy.

The womb with its placenta and fluid is an amazingly clever incubator which responds to external and internal factors affecting Mum. It also responds to factors to do with that particular baby. This all causes a genetic response in that baby.  Some genes are turned on and others switched off.

How clever is that.

I suppose the message to give today’s pregnant mothers is – be careful what you eat or your grandchildren will one day turn round and say -it is all your fault