Pre-Pregnancy Nutrition May Affect Prematurity
From Times Staff and Wire Reports
Poor nutritional habits of prospective mothers may be part of the rising incidence of premature births among women in the United States and elsewhere, according to researchers from Canada and New Zealand.
They reported in Friday’s issue of Science that female sheep given reduced-calorie diets before conception gave birth significantly earlier than those given normal amounts of food. Sheep are commonly used as models to study human fetal development.
The undernourishment apparently triggers a hormonal signal to the fetus to deliver early, they said. Premature birth can produce a variety of developmental, behavioral and intellectual problems.
