A poor diet during early pregnancy can have lasting effects on fetal brain development, lowering IQ and contributing towards lifelong behavioural problems, finds a new study out of the University of Texas Health Science Center San Antonio.
The study, published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, examined the effects of reduced nutrition in primates. Researchers allowed one group of expecting baboon mothers to eat as much as they wanted, while a second group had their rations reduced by 30 percent.
In the fetuses of the second group, the researchers "found dysregulation of hundreds of genes, many of which are known to be key regulators in cell growth and development, indicating that nutrition plays a major role during fetal development by regulating the basic cellular machinery," said Laura Cox, one of the researchers on the study.
Dr. Thomas McDonald, senior author on the study, noted that these findings challenge the commonly-held belief that mothers can protect their offspring from the effects of poor nutrition during pregnancy.