Healthy Diets Reduce Risk of Birth Defects

Several decades ago Adelle Davis, a health food guru, was reported to say, “You are what you eat.” In truth, however, you may be what your mother ate. A new study in the Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine suggests that pregnant women consuming a high-quality diet reduce the risk of birth defects in their babies.
The investigators collected information from more than 9,000 pregnant women between October 1997 and December of 2005. Each woman filled out a questionnaire about food intake, and the diets were analyzed to determine a Diet Quality Index and a Mediterranean Diet Score. Women who scored the highest for their diets in the year before their babies were born were least likely to bear a child with a neural tube defect or a facial defect such as a cleft palate. Women of childbearing age should be encouraged to eat more vegetables, fruits and whole grains and low in processed foods, not only for their own health but for that of their babies.
[Arch Pediatr Adolesc Med, Online October 3, 2011]