Healthy Pregnancy Habits – Latest Science Shows Mothers’ Habits Affect Successful Pregnancy

A new study looks at how dietary supplements during pregnancy, obesity, physical activity, and dietary patterns during pregnancy affect the success of pregnancy.

Four new studies have been published that investigate how supplements, eating habits, the effects of physical activity, and how they affect various aspects of health during pregnancy. NUTRITION 2021 Live Online..

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Breast milk microbiota affected by prenatal supplements

The growth of a child, the development of the immune system, and overall health are affected by the microbiome contained in breast milk. Increased use of prenatal supplements during childbirth can be affected by microbial diversity and milk abundance with unexpected consequences.

A new study from Purdue University used data from the CHILD cohort study to determine whether prenatal diets and supplements affected the microbial flora in the breast milk of 771 mothers.

The findings reveal that supplements are associated with changes in the composition of the breast milk microflora, but dietary patterns are not.

Mothers who took fish oil or folic acid supplements during pregnancy had less microbial diversity than mothers who did not. In addition, mothers who took vitamin C were more diverse than mothers who did not. .. Researchers say further analysis is needed to explain other variables that may affect the breast milk microbiome, such as behavior and regional differences, but preliminary evidence is supplements. Suggests that it affects the breast milk microbiome.

Obesity in pregnant mothers reduces the health of offspring

Previous studies have shown that maternal obesity has varying effects on offspring health, and inconsistent results provide little conclusive evidence to date. This is hypothesized to be associated with the direct and indirect effects of additional risk factors that contribute to metabolic syndrome.

A study by researchers at the Pennington Biomedical Research Center examined data involving 22 mothers with obesity, with or without other risk factors for metabolic syndrome such as hyperglycemia and high cholesterol. The goal was to find out more about whether additional risk factors contribute to the health of offspring.

Researchers found that obese women with high blood sugar or high cholesterol have higher blood sugar levels than women without risk factors, despite similar levels of weight gain and total fat mass during pregnancy. I found.

Importantly, children born to mothers with additional risk factors were heavier and had more body fat than children born to mothers without additional risk factors.

These findings indicate that the negative metabolic properties of obesity, such as high cholesterol and blood sugar, result in prolonged exposure to higher levels of glucose and triglycerides. Second, it promotes the fat mass and weight of the offspring at birth. Ultimately, the link between metabolic properties and offspring health is essential to understand as it may lead to more effective prenatal interventions and postnatal treatments.

Epigenetic changes in offspring metabolism and cellular activity among the benefits of maternal physical activity during pregnancy

Epigenetic changes, such as DNA methylation, alter gene expression levels without altering the underlying genetic code. These changes are often the result of behavioral and environmental patterns.

In addition, previous evidence suggests that maternal physical activity can affect offspring health through epigenetic changes in the placenta. However, there are some aspects that are not yet well understood, such as whether the timing of this activity is an influential factor in inheriting such changes.

According to a study by the Eunice Kennedy Schreiber National Institute of Pediatric Health and Human Development (NICHD), physical activity during pregnancy involves methylation of genes associated with multiple pathways from carbohydrate metabolism, cell function, cardiovascular and nervous system development. It has been shown to be related to.

This study is based on data from 296 mothers in the NICHD Fetal Growth Study-Singleton Cohort. In addition, analysis of gene expression levels did not show a significant association between pre-pregnancy physical activity and methylation, but methylation levels changed only during pregnancy.

Further data may support these findings and provide additional insight into the changes in the underlying mechanisms of how maternal physical activity affects epigenetic changes.

Dietary timing that affects sleep quality during pregnancy

The relationship between the time we eat and the body’s circadian rhythm is well established, and there is a wealth of evidence that circadian rhythms are based on food intake and sleep. However, individual variation across demographic, regional, or gender-based factors is less certain.

During pregnancy, sleep is an essential activity for maternal recovery and improved child development, and offsetting this balance is the key to understanding. A new study at UCSI University in Malaysia examines how the relationship between sleep and meal timing (called chrononutrition) is related to sleep quality during pregnancy and melatonin rhythm.

Melatonin is an important hormone that affects sleep quality and helps promote the sleep-wake cycle. The study examined how melatonin levels change with meal timing, meal frequency, meal times, breakfast skipping, and evening meals in 114 women who become pregnant for the first time.

The analysis found that women who eat less often or consume less fat at dinner tend to have poorer sleep quality than breakfast or lunch. In addition, the data showed that women near bedtime were associated with peak melatonin levels that occurred outside of normal sleep peaks.

Such findings are an important sign that unfavorable characteristics related to the timing of eating food can destabilize melatonin rhythm during pregnancy and contribute to sleep deprivation. Better regulation of time nutrition can improve sleep quality by ensuring a more stable circadian rhythm.

Future studies on whether the same effects are observed in subsequent pregnancies, or whether behavioral characteristics such as different dietary compositions and exercise also contribute to the stabilization of circadian rhythms, will understand the importance of chrononutration. Will deepen.