Going on a diet is bad for your foetus
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Going on a diet is bad for your foetus
By Tan Hui Leng, TODAY
SINGAPORE: Women who diet are doing a disservice to their foetuses when they get pregnant.
According to foetal development guru Professor Peter Gluckman, it's too late to stop dieting by the time you realise that you're pregnant because foetal development starts from Day 1.
"How the baby is looked after from the moment of conception, when it's just one egg, to birth in the neo-natal period can affect its destiny for the rest of its life," said the director of Liggins Institute at the University of Auckland in New Zealand.
The problem of dieting mums-to-be is especially worrying in Asia, said Prof Gluckman, who is in town to give a talk. A Japanese study has shown that newborn babies are now 150g to 200g lighter than those born 10 years ago, because their mothers are dieting.
During each pregnancy, expectant mothers should ideally gain about 10kg. "The foetus is preparing for its life after birth so everything that the mother does sends signals to the foetus, which tell the foetus about the world out there," said Prof Gluckman.
And women who are undernourished would have smaller babies who may suffer from health problems later on in life.
"Small babies are more likely to get obese because what they did is to prepare themselves inside the womb for a world without much food," he said.
Such nutritional signals, especially in early pregnancy, would turn some genetic switches on or off for the rest of the child's life. These would make the child more prone to storing fat so as to prepare himself for the "threatened" world out there, he added.
Those who only start taking care of their nutrition when they are pregnant may be too late in reversing the course of action, studies have found.
Compounded with a high-fat diet and sedentary lifestyle, these children are even more likely to get obese - a cause of diabetes and cardiovascular disease later in life.
Smaller babies also have less brain cells, particularly those needed for memory and learning.
Similarly, women should not smoke during their pregnancy as this would alter the child's lung development among other things, which will change physically to adapt to a perceived world filled with carbon monoxide.
Prof Gluckman, who chairs the World Health Organization technical committee on optimising the outcomes of pregnancy, advises women to have a balanced diet and maintain a reasonable Body Mass Index.
Women also should not get pregnant four to five years after their first period as they still need nutrients for growing. Breastfeeding is recommended until the baby is six months old, he said.
Parental involvement and stimulation in the first year of the child is important, as is the intake of vitamin B12 and folate.
Stress would not affect the foetus, unless it is severe, such as those triggered during a natural catastrophe, he added.
While small babies that are born as a result of undernourished mothers may be at risk of obesity, it is also important not to overfeed infants, he cautioned.
Prof Gluckman will be giving a talk about improving birth outcomes and lifelong health this evening at the KK Women's and Children's Hospital. For details, call 6235 9966. - TODAY /dt
Copyright © 2006 MCN International Pte Ltd
http://www.channelnewsasia.com/stories/health/view/207715/1/.html -
I was born underweight and had to spend time in some incubator thingy.
Explains my lifelong gluttony.
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Well, you don't look like someone underweight nowOriginally posted by av98m:I was born underweight and had to spend time in some incubator thingy.
Explains my lifelong gluttony. 
Making up for lost weight -
going on a diet is bad..
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Well I prove their theory wrong... mom indulged in all sorts of goodies when she had me, I came out a heavy-weight...
... and still am a heavy weight with a very big appetite LOLOriginally posted by av98m:I was born underweight and had to spend time in some incubator thingy.
Explains my lifelong gluttony. -
Originally posted by choco B:Well I prove their theory wrong... mom indulged in all sorts of goodies when she had me, I came out a heavy-weight...
... and still am a heavy weight with a very big appetite LOL -
i dont know what my mum did, i was born so scrawny and white, my 2nd uncle called me a drug addict
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Originally posted by av98m:I was born underweight and had to spend time in some incubator thingy.
Explains my lifelong gluttony.
I have another friend who was born a preemie and she's also big-sized! Maybe to compensate for the teeny-meeny start in life! 
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My mom made sure she drank at least one full cup of full-cream milk and ate lots of veggies and meat when she was pregnant with me. I came out bigger and heavier than was the norm then.Originally posted by choco B:Well I prove their theory wrong... mom indulged in all sorts of goodies when she had me, I came out a heavy-weight...
... and still am a heavy weight with a very big appetite LOL
In fact, she said that when she brought me to the polyclinic for my check-up, the nurse put me on the scale, got puzzled by my weight, took me off and started walking towards mom, then she U-turned and weighed me again cause the missy said that it can't be that the baby was that heavy!
She told mom that I was the biggest and heaviest baby she had ever seen in my age group.
As if to prove the theory that diet plays a huge part, mom didn't eat as voraciously when she was pregnant with my brother. She didn't even bother to drink that one full cup of full-cream milk everyday.
As a result, my brother's bones aren't as tua-mao (big) as mine!
Using the size test, his bones are definitely smaller.
I shoulda been my bro and my bro shoulda been me!
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you're not a drug addict?
Originally posted by laurence82:i dont know what my mum did, i was born so scrawny and white, my 2nd uncle called me a drug addict -
grrrrOriginally posted by the Bear:you're not a drug addict?
since when i am a drug addict?
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i have never heard of pregnant women going on a diet.
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dunno.. you just seem to behave like one with your delusions, rants about being evil and all thatOriginally posted by laurence82:grrrr
since when i am a drug addict? -
Originally posted by the Bear:going on a diet is bad..
I TOTALLY AGREE!!!!
some mothers do develop eating disorders when pregnant because they are unable to deal with all the weight gain
sad... -
udon, i absolutely like how you thinkOriginally posted by udontknowme:
I TOTALLY AGREE!!!!
some mothers do develop eating disorders when pregnant because they are unable to deal with all the weight gain
sad... -
orh, must be the brocollisOriginally posted by the Bear:dunno.. you just seem to behave like one with your delusions, rants about being evil and all that -
I've shared this before, but anyways...
Years ago, one of my lecturers in night school revealed to us that his brothers were gynaecologists and one day, they gathered together with their fellow gynaecologist friends to discuss the incidence of high miscarriages amongst the women here.
Apparently, most of the ladies who miscarried were on diets or were very skinny. His brothers then informed him that they felt that if you don't even eat enough nutritious food to be at an optimum level of health, your body won't be able to support foetal growth well.
The minute you realise you want to try to conceive, you should eat well and stop smoking and drinking. The article is right - by the time you realise you're pregnant, it would be at least four weeks from the time a missed period had been detected. The first few weeks are crucial in the formation of the foetus and needless to say, it's not good for the foetus if mom had been drinking and smoking and dieting then.
I think if a lady cannot feel responsible enough for the baby to start taking good care of herself and the baby when it's growing inside her womb, then maybe she ought to rethink if she's ready to embark on parenthood in the first place.
One celebrity who was in the news recently for being on silly extreme diets and doing other silly stuff like flying her plane when she was heavily pregnant in her last trimester is Angelina Jolie. Her doctors have been encouraging her to put on weight because out of a fear of putting on post-baby fat, she went on some diet that continued to keep her thin. She also refused to give up flying, which can be dangerous because the air pressure changes whilst on board can cause her to faint. Because of her bad nutrition, she fainted on a few occasions whilst she was pregnant. -
ya gotta stop smoking that stuffOriginally posted by laurence82:orh, must be the brocollis
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Lau, plural for broccoli is still broccoli... no 's' one.Originally posted by laurence82:orh, must be the brocollis -
thank you thank you...Originally posted by the Bear:udon, i absolutely like how you think
there is still the ice cream eating competition... -
udontknowme is 'udon'?Originally posted by the Bear:udon, i absolutely like how you think
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i was in training the other night... 1 pint of Chubby Hubby eatenOriginally posted by udontknowme:thank you thank you...
there is still the ice cream eating competition... -
Originally posted by Rhonda:Lau, plural for broccoli is still broccoli... no 's' one.
orh..
anyway, it can be the brocolli...my mum hadnt been cooking some of those
my usual diet nowadays, as compared to my exam period, consists of home cooked meals, tea, bits of snacks like keropok
fish, tonnes of fish too -
must be the mercury in the fish...Originally posted by laurence82:
orh..
anyway, it can be the brocolli...my mum hadnt been cooking some of those
my usual diet nowadays, as compared to my exam period, consists of home cooked meals, tea, bits of snacks like keropok
fish, tonnes of fish too -
yeah.. why not?Originally posted by Rhonda:udontknowme is 'udon'?