Stanford Study Finds a Healthy Diet Lowers Risk of Birth Defects
Pregnant women who eat more fruits, vegetables and whole grains, and eat fewer foods high in things like saturated fats and sugar, have a lower risk of giving birth to babies with specific birth defects.
That’s the takeaway from a study released today by Stanford University School of Medicine Department of Pediatrics. The study showed pregnant women with healthy eating habits are less likely to have babies with neural tube defects (malformations of the brain or spine) and orofacial clefts (such as cleft lip or cleft palate).
Women from 10 U.S. states were surveyed about the quality of their diets immediately before and during pregnancy. Those with the highest quality eating habits were 36 to 51 percent less likely to have babies with anencephaly, a fatal birth defect where the baby is born without part of the brain or skull. Women with healthier diets were also 24 to 34 percent less likely to have babies born with cleft lip.
Read more on KQED’s News Fix blog.
KQED Radio Newscast “Study Draws Connection Between Overall Diet, Birth Defects”
birth defects, cleft lip, healthy diet, neural tube defect, stanford