Prenatal Nutrition: Its Importance
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It is important to realize that the diet a woman eats during her pregnancy and even before her pregnancy effects the adult health of her future offspring. For example, a recent study shows a strong association in children who develop brain tumors with the mother’s consumption of hot dogs during pregnancy. Scientific evidence suggests that cigarette smoking during pregnancy is associated with testicular cancer in sons 35- to 50- years later.
– Disease-Proof Your Child (2005) by Dr. Joel Fuhrman, M.D.; page 105
From Disease-Proof Your Child (2005) by Dr. Joel Fuhrman, M.D.; page 108: The real concerns are not microwave ovens, cell phones, and hair dryers. The things we know to be really risky for you and your unborn children are:
- Caffeine
- Nicotine, including secondhand smoke
- Alcohol
- Medications, both over-the-counter and prescription drugs
- Herbs and high-dose supplements, vitamin A
- Fish, mollusks and shellfish, sushi (raw fish)
- Hot tubs and saunas
- Radiation
- Household cleaner, paint thinners
- Cat litter (because of an infectious disease called toxoplasmosis caused by a parasite found in cat feces)
- Raw milk and cheese
- Soft cheeses and blue-veined cheeses such as feta, Roquefort, and Brie
- Artificial colors, nitrates, and MSG
- Deli meats, luncheon meats, hot dogs, and undercooked meats
Studies That Indicate Epigenetic Changes Due to Malnourishment
The Hunger Winter. The Dutch famine of 1944, known as the “Hunger winter,” was a famine that took place in the northern part of the Netherlands, during the winter of 1944-1945, near the end of World War II. The Hunger Winter killed some ten thousand people and weakened thousands more. But the 40,000 fetuses in utero were also affected. Some of the effects of malnutrition during pregnancy were immediately apparent in higher rates of stillbirths, birth defects, low birth weights, and infant mortality. Others would not be discovered for decades.
- The children of the women who were pregnant during the famine were smaller, as expected. However, surprisingly, when these children grew up and had children those children were also smaller than average.
- People whose mothers were pregnant during the siege have more obesity, more diabetes, and more heart disease in later life than individuals who were gestated under normal conditions. These individuals’ prenatal experience of starvation seems to have changed their bodies in myriad ways: they have higher blood pressure, poorer cholesterol profiles, and reduced glucose tolerance, a precursor of diabetes… The timing of the nutritional deprivation during pregnancy seems to matter: the risk of diabetes is especially high among people exposed to malnutrition in mid- to late- gestation, while the risk for heart disease is three times higher in people whose mothers were starved very early in pregnancy. (How the Nine Months Before Birth Shape the Rest of Our Lives; 2010; Annie Murphy Paul; page 24)
- The discovery of the cause of Coeliac disease may also be partly attributed to the Dutch famine. (Scientific Legacy of The Hunger Winter, Wikipeida)
- Audrey Hepburn spent her childhood in the Netherlands during the famine. She suffered from anemia, respiratory illnesses, and edema as a result. Also, her clinical depression later in life has been attributed to malnutrition.[6] (Scientific Legacy of The Hunger Winter, Wikipeida)
- Subsequent academic research on the children who were affected in the second trimester of their mother’s pregnancy, found an increased incidence of schizophrenia in these children.[7] Also increased among them were the rates of schizotypal personality and neurological defects.(Scientific Legacy of The Hunger Winter, Wikipeida)
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The information contained throughout this blog / website should not be used as a substitute for the medical care and advice of your pediatrician / physician.
