Why and how does a womans diet impact the development of a fetus?
When a fetus is undernourished early in life, cells are programmed to expect fewer nutrients throughout life. When these babies are then given a richer diet in childhood, they quickly put on weight and have a tendency to become fat. My research has shown that heart disease rates are twice as high in those who come from the poorest areas in England and Wales; these individuals were small, malnourished babies born to women who had poor diets during pregnancy. In this country, the highest rates of strokes occur in the deep South, where the poorest Americans live. But food is plentiful in the United States today. Why would this still be a problem? We also have one of the world’s poorest diets. Today, more mothers are giving birth to 9- and 10-pound babies, but that’s also the result of poor nutrition. Many of these mothers are prediabetic and overweight and have been eating poorly their entire lives. We’ve recently seen that the biggest babies, like the smallest babies, have higher rates o
