Having diabetes during pregnancy can have unfavorable effects on the neurodevelopment of two-year-olds.
On the other hand, a new study, conducted at the University of Turku, Finland, revealed that a comprehensive healthy diet for the mother supports the neurological development of the child, according to Neuroscience News.
Cognitive, language and motor skills
The mother’s health and lifestyle during pregnancy are important factors regulating the child’s neurological development. The Mother and Child Study, conducted in collaboration with Turku University Hospital, examined how gestational diabetes, obesity and diet during pregnancy affect the neurodevelopment of two-year-olds.
The research project examined the development of children’s cognitive, language and motor skills. Maternal obesity was determined by air displacement plethysmography and gestational diabetes by oral glucose tolerance test. Dietary intake during pregnancy was also assessed through diet quality index and fish consumption questionnaires.
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Pregnancy diabetes
Researcher Lotta Saros, from the Institute of Biomedicine at the University of Turku, said the data indicated that the children’s neurodevelopment was “on average, in normal rates”.
She also added that research results showed that two-year-old children whose mothers were diagnosed with gestational diabetes had weaker language skills than children whose mothers were not diagnosed with gestational diabetes, adding that the study discovered that a high percentage of body fat in the mother is linked to poor cognitive skills. linguistic and motor skills in children.
Sarros also noted that these results are “unique, as previous studies did not examine the relationship between maternal body composition and children’s neurological development,” explaining that diabetes and obesity during pregnancy, and high body fat mass in particular, have unfavorable effects on metabolism. It increases inflammation in the body, which is one of the possible mechanisms, which act as detrimental factors on the neurodevelopment of the child.
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Good diet for pregnant women
Professor Kirsi Laitinen, who leads the Early Nutrition and Health Research Group at the University of Turku, said that the study also found that better nutritional quality of the mother’s diet was associated with better language development for the child, and a similar finding was made about the link between the mother’s consumption of fish and the child’s neurodevelopment. .
The results indicate that a good diet, which contains unsaturated fatty acids, such as the omega-3 fatty acids in fish, leads to enhanced neurological development in children.