Mediterranean diet during pregnancy showed improved cognitive, social abilities in toddlers
When followed during pregnancy, the Mediterranean diet — a diet consisting mainly of plant foods — was shown to improve the cognitive and social development in those children two years after birth, compared to other children in a randomized clinical trial published Tuesday in JAMA Network Open.
“At year 2, the children’s brains are harvesting some of the benefits that they received in their adequate nutrition during their intrauterine life,” Dr. Miguel Martínez-González, a professor of preventive medicine and public health at the University of Navarra in Pamplona, Spain, told CNN.
“No other dietary model possesses such an impressive accrual of scientific evidence as the traditional Mediterranean diet,” Martínez-González added.
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Study details
According to JAMA, the trial was conducted in Spain between February 2017 and March 2020.
A group of 1,221 pregnant women with “high risk of delivering newborns who were small for gestational age” were randomly split into three groups: One followed a Mediterranean diet, another group followed a mindfulness-based stress reduction program and a third group had usual care, per the study.
The women who followed the diet were given olive oil, walnuts and monthly sessions with nutritionists, CNN said.
Two years after the study, researchers tested about half the babies, now toddlers age 2, and had them take an evaluation to measure cognitive and social-emotional development, according to Medical News Today.
JAMA said the study found that, “Compared with children from the usual care group, children in the Mediterranean diet group had higher scores in the cognitive domain and social-emotional domain, whereas children from the stress reduction group had higher scores in the social-emotional domain.”
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Dana Hunnes, a senior clinical dietician at the University of California Los Angeles Medical Center, told Medical News Today she wasn’t surprised by the findings.
“So much brain development occurs in utero and in the first few years of life, so it makes total sense that a very healthy anti-inflammatory diet that is primarily plant-based and filled with very healthy fats would result in better neurodevelopmental outcomes. I think it shows that healthy diets can have big effects on health outcomes later in life,” Hunnes added.
What foods should you eat during pregnancy?
The Mayo Clinic lists foods to eat during pregnancy, including “fruits, vegetables, whole grains, lean protein and healthy fats.”
The clinic suggests other nutrients important to have during pregnancy:
Folate and folic acid.
Calcium.
Vitamin D.
Protein.
Iron.
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services said foods to avoid when pregnant include raw or undercooked foods, unpasteurized milk or cheese or “raw sprouts, including alfalfa, clover, radish and mung bean sprouts.”
