Angela Onwuzoo
A new study by researchers from St John’s College, University of Cambridge in the United Kingdom has found that consumption of fast food diet before pregnancy could impact women’s health and reduce their ability to produce nutritional breast milk after giving birth.
The findings of the research, experts say, could provide further insight into why women planning to get pregnant must ensure that they have good nutritional status before becoming pregnant.
The findings, published in the Sciencedaily, revealed that a diet high in sugar and fat such as burgers, fries, and fizzy drinks could negatively affect a new mother’s breast milk and baby’s health even before the child is conceived.
Further analysis suggests that a fast food diet can affect the newborn’s wellbeing, as well as increase the risk of both mother and child developing potentially fatal conditions such as heart disease, stroke, and diabetes in later life.
The research, which involved the use of lab mice, found that even relatively short-term consumption of a fast food diet impacts women’s health thereby reducing their ability to produce nutritional breast milk after giving birth.
The new findings involved scientists from the Sferruzzi-Perri Lab at the Centre for Trophoblast Research, University of Cambridge, and The Department for the Woman and Newborn Health Promotion at the University of Chile in Santiago.
Co-lead author and a Fellow of St John’s College, Cambridge University, Prof. Amanda Sferruzzi-Perri said “Women eating diets that tend to have high sugar and high-fat content may not realise what impact that might be having on their health, especially if there’s not an obvious change in their body weight.
“They might have greater adiposity – higher levels of fat mass – which we know is a predictor of many health problems. That may not overtly impact on their ability to become pregnant but could have consequences for the growth of the baby before birth, and the health and wellbeing of the baby after birth.”
Sferruzzi-Perri who is a Professor in Fetal and Placental Physiology at the university said it had already been recognised that a ‘Western style’ diet high in fat and sugar was contributing to a pandemic of raised body mass index (BMI) and obesity not only in developed countries but also in developing nations undergoing urbanization.
“As a result, just over half of women (52.7 per cent ) in many populations around the world are overweight or obese when they conceive, leading to problems in both achieving and maintaining a healthy pregnancy.
“Obesity has been recreated in mice before, but most studies focus on the effects of chronic, long-term high fat, high sugar diets. In this new study, a group of mice was fed a diet of processed high-fat pellets with sweetened condensed milk for just three weeks before pregnancy, during the three-week pregnancy itself, and following birth.
“This diet was designed to mimic the nutritional content of a fast food burger, fries and sugary soft drink. The aim was to determine the impacts on fertility, foetus growth and neonatal outcomes”, said Prof. Sferruzzi-Perri.
The Co-lead author noted, “Milk proteins are hugely important for newborn development but the quality was found to be poor in mouse mothers eating the high fat, high sugar diet.
“We wanted to know what was going on because the mothers looked okay, they weren’t large in terms of their size. But what we found was that although the mice seemed to have okay rates of getting pregnant, they did have greater amounts of adipose – fat tissue – in their body in and at the start of pregnancy.
“They ended up with fatty livers, which is really dangerous for the mum, and there was altered formation of the placenta. The weight of the foetus itself wasn’t affected. They seemed lighter, but it wasn’t significant.
“But what was also apparent was that the nutrition to the foetus was changed in pregnancy. Then when we looked at how the mum may be supporting the baby after pregnancy, we found that her mammary gland development and her milk protein composition was altered, and that may have been the explanation for the greater health problems of the newborn pups.”
Prof. Sferruzzi-Perri said it is important for women to be educated about eating a healthy, balanced diet before trying to get pregnant, as well as during the pregnancy and afterward.
Giving further insight into the issue in an interview with PUNCH HealthWise, a Professor of Public Health Nutrition at Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife, Osun State, Beatrice Ogunba, urged women planning to get pregnant to ensure that they have good nutritional status before becoming pregnant.
This, Prof. Ogunba says, is crucial in reducing malnutrition in children, stressing that malnutrition in babies starts from pregnancy.
The nutritionist affirmed that there was a strong relationship between the nutritional status of women before conception and the healthy development of pregnancy.
Prof. Ogunba, a specialist in maternal and child nutrition, noted that women who were anaemic before pregnancy had higher chances of giving birth to babies with low birth weight.
She explained, “Iron is key when it has to do with pregnancy. When a woman’s nutritional status is poor during pregnancy, it has implications for the development of the baby. For those that are anaemic before pregnancy, if they don’t report to the hospital on time for the doctor to monitor their iron status, the chance of having a baby with low birth weight is high.
“So, it is important for women to build up their nutritional status before pregnancy. I will recommend a minimum of six months for women to begin to build their nutritional status before pregnancy by boosting their iron status for the baby to have enough iron when they are pregnant.”
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