Remember that old wives’ tale: an apple a day keeps the doctor away? Well it may also keep the doctor away for your infant, if you eat apples while you are pregnant.
New research shows that if a mom-to-be includes apples in her diet, she can reduce the rates of asthma later for her unborn child. In addition, if a pregnant woman adds fish to her prenatal fare, she could reduce her child’s risk for allergic eczema.
Dutch researchers followed over 1200 children from before their birth until age 5. Their mothers filled out food questionnaires during their pregnancies. Later, the kids’ diets were reviewed. In addition, the children’s health was assessed with a symptom questionnaire.
The results of the analysis showed that women who ate more than 4 apples a week had children with 37 per cent less risk of wheezing compared to kids whose mothers ate the lowest numbers of apples. In fact, if moms ate “an apple a day”, their children had less than half the chance of being diagnosed with asthma by a doctor than if mothers avoided this fruit.
Researchers are unclear of the biological mechanism by which apples provide this protective benefit, but theorize that it could be flavonoids and other antioxidants in apples working in the fetus’s body.
Adding fish to the prenatal diet also provided a significant boost to baby’s health. If a mom-to-be eats fish just once a week, her baby has 43 per cent less risk of eczema as compared to a mom who eats no fish.
Asthma is a chronic condition that currently affects as many as 6.2 million children in the US. Eczema – often called atopic dermatitis by doctors – is an allergic reaction that makes the skin dry and itchy. The incidence of food allergies in particular has been skyrocketing for kids in recent years. This is also impacting rates of eczema for children.
Dr Jennifer Appleyard, chief of allergy and immunology at St John Hospital and Medical Center in Detroit, MI said, “There are influences in utero that can have a lasting impact.” Just one of those is diet.
Source: USnews.com
