Pre-natal eating habits can adversely affect children before and after birth

The old adage, you are what you eat, also applies to an unborn baby.

Women’s diets – what women eat throughout their lives, before they even think about getting pregnant — directly affect their unborn baby’s brain development and can lead to having babies with autism, emotional problems or attention-deficit-hyperactivity disorder.

Though women can reverse bad eating habits during their pregnancies, the damage of long-time bad eating can still affect an unborn baby’s eventual birth weight, emotional intelligence, and even a tendency to follow in mom’s footsteps by being hard-wired to yearn for junk food, research reveals.

“About 10 to 15 years ago, [such a notion] seemed a little sci-fi,” said Nicole Avena, an assistant professor of neuroscience at Mt. Sinai School of Medicine and a visiting professor of health psychology at Princeton University.

Today’s poor eating habits have caught up to the future — and it is us.

More than 60 percent of American women of prime childbearing age (20 to 39 years old) are obese — many because of the easy accessibility of junk food and high-salt, high-sugar processed foods, as well as toxins and chemicals that help preserve food in bottles, cans, jars and other packaging.

“Most people are living on a diet of foods made in a lab and designed to taste really good, which actually changes the way the brain’s neurotransmitters work — acting much like the addiction people get from morphine, nicotine or alcohol,” Avena said. “It clearly affects the brain like a drug.” (Avena has written a book about her research, titled “What to Eat When You’re Pregnant,” and its followup, “What to Feed Your Baby and Toddler.”)

When obese women who are addicted to poor diets get pregnant, research shows they can be twice as likely as average-weight women to expose their unborn baby to increased risk of obesity, heart disease, and emotional and mental-health problems such as autism, attention deficit-hyperactivity disorder and problems regulating fear, anger and sadness — in other words, the baby’s emotional intelligence.

Though a father’s diet can affect an unborn baby’s development, too, it’s less influential because the mother and fetus are directly connected through the placenta and blood supply.

Can women reverse the negative effects of being obese by starting healthy behaviors when they learn they’re pregnant?

Local experts say yes, to some extent.

Women with unhealthy eating patterns must work extra hard and, if they’re obese, gain no weight at all during their pregnancies.

“I don’t want anyone walking into my office feeling scrutinized or embarrassed, but the equation is simple — whatever we eat that isn’t used or burned as fuel becomes body fat and exposes the baby to high blood sugar, translates into excessive weight gain and diabetes, and can cause complications with delivery and childhood obesity,” said Dr. Julie Levitt, an obstetrician and gynecologist and marathon runner who is a clinical instructor at Northwestern Hospital and practices with the Women’s Group of Northwestern — the first all-female medical practice specializing in ob/gyn.

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“I think that we need to dedicate time to discuss diet and nutrition pre-pregnancy and in pregnancy, sorting out the real reasons for obesity, overeating and what body mass index (BMI) means,” Levitt said. “Once people understand the risks associated with obesity and inactivity, which will only worsen in pregnancy, it can be a wake-up call.”

Obstetrician and gynecologist Dr. Tamika Alexander said women who eat mostly fast-food diets likely are getting little or no calcium, folic acid and Vitamin D, among other vitamins, because they’re likely skipping fresh fruits and vegetables.

Further, if a woman is diabetic and fails to control the disease, such as keeping high blood sugar levels in check, she can cause brain, spinal and skeletal abnormalities in the fetus, said Alexander, assistant professor of clinical obstetrics and gynecology at the University of Illinois at Chicago.

Alexander, who estimates 70 percent of her patients are obese or overweight before they get pregnant, recommends women take prenatal vitamins one year before they want to get pregnant, and continue to do so while they breastfeed.

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She also recommends women eat balanced meals comprising a protein, complex carbs and dark green vegetables. This can include red meat and dried beans and peas to obtain the necessary iron they need. Also beneficial: cow’s milk, salmon and sardines to gain Vitamin D, breakfast cereals fortified with folic acid, orange juice and kale, spinach and other green leafy vegetables.

On the other hand, women should not go on crash diets when they’re pregnant.

“There’s just as much danger in being underweight and having an extreme fear of eating fats — even healthy fats like avocados,” said Christina E. Ciaccio, associate professor of pediatrics and medicine and chief of allergy immunology at the University of Chicago.

Ciaccio says women can make up for lost time when it comes to thwarting allergies that might get passed on to their unborn babies. They can do so by eating more Omega 3 fatty acids found in foods such as algae, green vegetables and wild-caught fish (with no high mercury levels), and taking Omega 3 pre-pregnancy supplements as soon as possible. Continue taking Omega 3 supplements while breastfeeding.

“Ideally, [the mom-to-be] should be eating a diet low in sugar and high in fruits and vegetables long before she gets pregnant,” Ciaccio said. “But there’s a high population in Chicago who live in food deserts [with difficult access to fresh foods]. They’re doing the best one can under the circumstances.”

Women who live in food deserts have to work harder to maintain a healthy diet, the doctors agreed. They suggest buying at least a week’s worth of fresh fruits and vegetables at a time, then cutting them up and freezing them for future use. For variety, stock up on items like rice, tuna, canned beans, canned vegetables and sweet potatoes — as long as you check the labels to make sure they’re the low-sodium versions.

As far as taking matters into your own hands, try planting a small garden in a backyard or in pots on a porch, advocating for more community gardens, and lobbying your alderman to work for more grocery stores in your neighborhood, Ciaccio said.

So how can women regulate their eating — and eat healthy foods — when they’re moody, nauseated and watching their waists expand? The experts and doctors give this advice:

• For nausea during the first trimester, add ginger to foods; eat low-odor and mild-tasting foods such as hard-boiled eggs kept in the refrigerator.
• Small, frequent snacks such as nuts, crackers and dried fruit between meals can help keep blood sugar levels stable. No single food works for everyone, and too many raw fruits and vegetables can cause bloating and gas pain during pregnancy.
• Though babies may make a face at first, persistent moms can encourage them to eat fresh foods, limiting the sweet, high calorie processed choices.
• For toddlers who’ve become picky, vegetable purees can be stealthily added to foods they like, such as adding a carrot-tomato puree into pasta sauce. Use fruits as desserts. Apple slices with a drizzle of honey and shake of cinnamon could do the trick for a while.

Ciaccio also emphasized that women who eat peanuts when they’re pregnant do not cause their babies to be allergic to peanuts.

Finally, hopeful signs are cropping up, Ciaccio said, such as young women eyeballing food and drinks’ sugar content, using fewer disinfectants and becoming more judicious about taking antibiotics.

“Not all hope is lost,” she said. “There are modifiable things we can do.”

Sandra Guy is a local freelance writer.

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