Pregnant women should go on a healthy diet! Future mothers might consider incorporating fresh fruits, vegetables and whole grains in their diet as a way to take good care of their babies' heart, a study suggested.
A 10-year experiment conducted by the pool of researchers from University of Utah School of Medicine observed that children, whose mothers have taken a healthy diet on the duration of their pregnancy, have lesser or no congenital heart problems.
The researchers of the study asked about 19,000 young mothers, both with babies with heart problems and with healthy newborns and found out the vital contribution of healthy components in their diet.
Published in the journal, Archives of Diseases on Children: Fetal and Neonatal Edition, the new study recommended that pregnant women's diet, should include tremendous amounts of fruits, vegetables and whole grains among others as it has been proven that the food products that they take in have a significant effect on their children's health.
According to HealthDay News, pregnant women whose diet composed of vegetables, fruits, whole grains, fish, legumes as well as a small amount of sweets, dairy and meat on top of other nutrients like iron, calcium and folic acid had babies with a healthy heart.
"The more you went up in diet quality, the less the risk for severe congenital heart anomalies," said lead author Dr. Lorenzo Botto, a professor of pediatrics and a medical geneticist at the University of Utah School of Medicine.
Though medical experts agreed that pregnancy diet benefits both the mother and the child, they also argued that other factors could lead to the development of congenital heart diseases among babies.
"However, this study didn't prove a cause-and-effect relationship between a healthy diet and a lower risk of heart birth defects. The research only showed an association between the two," it was further reported.
In a BBC News report, British Heart Foundation Senior Dietitian Victoria Taylor said that congenital heart disease factors can also be genetic in nature.
"This is an interesting study which highlights the importance of diet right from the start of life," Taylor said.
The new study revealed that pregnancy diet reduces the risk of newborns to acquire heart diseases such as the most common atrial septal defects up to 23 percent.
The Mayo Clinic defined atrial septal defect (ASD) as a condition where there is a hole in the wall between the two upper chambers of the heart, also known as the atria. It is a congenital condition or a condition present since birth.
