Nutrition during pregnancy is a key factor not only for the health of the mother, but also for that of her baby. We know, for example, that eating a good diet helps prevent diseases and reduce risks during childbirth and infancy.
Something essential for a balanced and nutritious diet are vegetables or vegetables, foods with which parents sometimes struggle for our children to consume them and for which we look for tricks or special recipes.
In a collection of studies we did on the influence of breastfeeding on baby feeding, we found that breastfed babies tend to be more likely to accept new or different flavors, and among those studies, there was one that pointed out that the babies of those mothers who had consumed certain foods more frequently during lactation tended to accept them better .
Now, a new study indicates that instilling a diet that includes vegetables can start from when they are in the womb, as it has been found that the more vegetables mothers consume during pregnancy, the larger portions their children will eat during childhood .
The study
According to the study published in the journal Appetite and carried out by a group of French and American researchers, the amount of vegetables consumed by mothers during their pregnancy would be related to the consumption of these vegetables during the early years of their children.
In previous experimental research, conducted by the same team, it was found that the passive transfer of flavors from the maternal diet through amniotic fluid and breast milk , could improve and increase the consumption of vegetables by children.
For this study, 696 women were followed through their pregnancies, conducting surveys about their children’s nutrition six years later. After analyzing the data, it was found that mothers with a consistently higher intake of vegetables reported that their children consumed them more frequently , compared to mothers who had a consistently low intake.
Although the researchers note that vegetable consumption in infancy may be due to multiple factors, their study demonstrates that “maternal prenatal and postnatal vegetable intake appears to have a small but significant influence.”
In Babies and more | Children May Develop Taste Preferences Based on Their Mothers’ Favorite Foods During Pregnancy, The 7 Must-Have Foods in Children’s Diets
