physiology of her offspring was established by Barker back in the 80s.
Essentially, it works like this. Like all living beings in their early lives, humans are able to adapt to their environment. If we couldn’t, we would die. There is a critical period early in life where that adaptation happens, and once that period passes, we become less “plastic” and able to adapt. Our programming is set.
For humans, that critical period when a system is plastic and sensitive to its environment occurs in utero. This makes perfect sense in evolutionary terms. It enables the production of genetic phenotypes that make us better matched to the environment we are likely find ourselves in after we’re born.
For example, if the mother’s nutritional status is poor during pregnancy, the fetus might develop metabolic adaptations that would allow it to store more calories (the “thrifty phenotype” hypothesis). This would have been a protective mechanism that could increase the chances of survival if that fetus was born into an environment where calories were scarce.
Gluckman et al extended this concept of developmental plasticity by showing that fetal programming operates across the range from undernutrition to overnutrition with a U-shaped curve. This means that the future health of the baby will be affected when Mom gets either too little of the right nutrients or too much of the wrong ones.
Roseboom et al found that undernutrition during pregnancy affects different organs of the body and increases the risk of disease independent of birth weight. Other researchers have theorized that maternal diet may regulate blood flow to developing organs (i.e. to the brain vs. the liver) which in turn causes changes in fetal programming that affect body composition at birth and even later in life.
The nutritional conditions in the womb start before conception
We’ve now established that the nutritional environment of a mother’s womb affects her baby’s health not only at birth and during early infancy, but for the rest of his or her life. This leads us to the obvious conclusion that proper maternal nutrition is crucial for the lifelong health of her offspring.
But what determines the mother’s nutritional status during pregnancy? Certainly, the obvious answer is her diet and lifestyle after she has conceived. But I hope it’s also obvious that the mother’s diet in the months and even years leading up to conception is also important.
This is why traditional cultures have sacred fertility foods they feed to mothers-to-be and even fathers-to-be. These include nutrient dense foods like fish eggs, liver, bone marrow, egg yolks and other animal fats. For example, the Masai tribe in Africa only allowed couples to marry and become pregnant after spending several months drinking milk in the wet season when the grass is lush and the nutrient content of the milk is especially high.
Unfortunately this traditional wisdom has been largely lost in the modern world. The role of nutrition during pre-conception is scarcely even mentioned in the media or conventional medical settings. Yet as we’ve seen in this article, a mother’s diet prior to conception and during pregnancy may be one of the most important factors in determining the lifelong health of her baby.
Another problem is that many women are (understandably) confused about what constitutes proper nutrition during the pre-conception and pregnancy period. There’s so much contradictory information out there, and it can be difficult for the layperson to know what to believe and who to trust.