Well, most Indian mothers and elders also believe that what a woman eats during her pregnancy ends up impacting the fetus's taste and eating habits. This isn't entirely false but isn't true either. A baby's food preferences depend on various factors. According to Sonali Shivlani, an Internationally Certified Pregnancy, Lactation and Child Nutrition Counsellor and our panel expert, it is a myth that babies end up favouring foods that their mothers ate during pregnancy. 'However, they do tend to eat foods from a particular food group as it develops certain tastes when in the womb,' she says.
While a child develops her sense of taste during her developmental phase by eating various kinds of foods, here are few reasons why a mother should always eat healthy to promote healthy eating habits in kids right from the womb.
Mother's diet influences baby's food preference during weaning
A study published in the journal Paediatrics in 2001 showed that flavours that the mother favoured during her pregnancy had an impact on the baby during the weaning stages. In this study, mothers who drank carrot juice during the third trimester and lactation, their babies were more likely to eat carrots or carrot based foods during weaning. The study concluded that prenatal and postnatal exposure to certain tastes influences the baby to pick up those foods during weaning [1]. This is because the baby, when in womb, can taste certain flavours through the amniotic fluid and that influences her choices later in life.
Mother's who ate junk foods during pregnancy their children preferred the same
Another study showed that mothers who ate more junk and sugar rich foods during their pregnancy, their babies turned to prefer those tastes more rather than healthy foods when offered during weaning. This is because these children developed sensitivity towards such foods while in the womb. However, their brain would just register those tastes only when offered in adequate amounts during adult life [2].
Hence, this shows that maternal nutrition during pregnancy is not only important to keep the mother healthy but impacts the fetus too. It is also important to help the child develop the right choices of food as she grows up.
References
1. Mennella JA, Jagnow CP, Beauchamp GK. Prenatal and postnatal flavor learning by human infants. Pediatrics. 2001 Jun;107(6):E88. PubMed PMID: 11389286; PubMed Central PMCID: PMC1351272.
2. Gugusheff, J. R., Ong, Z. Y., & Muhlhausler, B. S. (2013). A maternal "junk-food" diet reduces sensitivity to the opioid antagonist naloxone in offspring postweaning. The FASEB Journal, 27(3), 1275-1284.
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