FERTILITY AND NUTRITION: LOW BIRTH-WEIGHT
Low birth weight is classed as any baby weighing under 2.5kg (5.51b) at birth. In my mother’s generation it was desirable to have a large baby because they were considered to be stronger. In baby competitions of that era, babies that won first prize were usually bigger and classed as ‘bonny babies’. The trend then moved to the opposite extreme – women felt that a smaller baby looked cuter and they also thought that a smaller baby would mean an easier labour.
However, pioneering work by Professor David Barker has shown that what we weigh at birth can have an immense effect on our health later on in life. Low birth weight has been linked to an increased risk of high blood pressure, a higher risk of coronary heart disease, and a greater risk of non-insulin dependent diabetes.
As David Barker says, ‘Research suggests that coronary heart disease and stroke and the associated conditions, hypertension [high blood pressure] and non-insulin dependent diabetes, originate through impaired growth and development during foetal life and infancy.’
A 1997 study looked at women who were born with low birth weights. The scientists then monitored the same women through puberty and adolescence, and found that they started their periods about three to six months later than average. When they became pregnant, the course of pregnancy and delivery was within the normal range but their chance of giving birth to a low birth weight baby was double that of other women. This is why preconception care, and what you do once you are pregnant, is so important.
The World Health Organization uses two markers for the health of any nation: birth weight and longevity. In the UK 54,000 low birth weight babies are born each year and the incidence has not changed in 30 years.
These consequences of low birth weight affect the babies throughout their lives and it is now suggested that there is a link between weight at birth and asthma. Researchers from a number of London hospitals found that low birth weight was a risk factor for asthma by the age of 26.The incidence of asthma among adults fell as birth weight increased.
Nutrition plays a key role in helping you to get pregnant and then having a healthy pregnancy and a healthy baby.
As Isobel Jennings says in her book Vitamins in Endocrine Metabolism, ‘It seems that much more could be done in the field of preventative medicine to cut down the large numbers of preventable congenital defects. In human foetal development, most abnormalities are established by the eighth to the tenth week of gestation. This means of course that the most important period for nutritional care occurs in the few weeks before and immediately after conception.
A few years ago, Scandinavian doctors linked diets rich in fish with a decrease in premature births. They felt that three fish meals a week would be enough not only to reduce premature births but also to produce a good weight baby.
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