Mother’s Diet Can Cut Heart Defects In Newborns

Women who eat healthily before and during pregnancy could cut the risk of their baby developing a heart problem, researchers have found. The first one was used to measure eight components that exist in the diet of the mother: fruit, vegetables, grains, iron, calcium, folate, patterns of meal and snack consumption and calories derived from fats. Half of them had given birth to healthy babies, and half had had babies with major heart abnormalities at birth between 1997 and 2009.

Findings revealed that mothers in the top 25 percent of diet quality as assessed by the DQI-P, had a significantly lower risk of having a baby with certain heart defects than those in the bottom 25 percent.

The study also noted that a healthier diet before and during pregnancy lowers the risk of tetralogy of Fallot which involves very low levels of oxygen in the blood, by 37 percent, and atrial septal defects which divide the upper heart chambers because of holes in the wall of the septum by 23 percent.

“A healthy diet before, during and after pregnancy can have benefits for both mother and child and, as seen here, the whole diet should be taken into consideration, rather than exclusively focusing on individual nutrients”.

The findings support the need for women to eat a healthful diet even before they have conceived, since birth defects can occur very early in pregnancy.

Some studies suggest that multivitamin supplements might lower the risk while others suggest that better diet quality might make a difference to the rate of heart abnormalities at birth.

The study appears in the journal Archives of Disease in Childhood (Fetal & Neonatal Edition). So far, doctors have few preventive options at their fingertips. If a woman waits to begin eating healthy food after she is pregnant, it could be too late, advised the research team.

Congenital heart defects affect about 1 percent of American newborns, and about one in four of those children will die in infancy.

Dr. Edward McCabe, senior vice president and medical director of the March of Dimes, agreed. All the mothers were questioned about their diets prior to becoming pregnant.

Experts recommend folic acid to reduce the risk of other birth defects like spina bifida, and vitamin D for healthy bones and teeth.

For more information on pregnancy and nutrition, visit the U.S. National Institutes of Health.