New Delhi: Consumption of vegetables during pregnancy may build the child’s tastes in the years to come, a new study by several universities has found.
The research, funded by England’s Aston University, was published in the journal Developmental Psychobiology on 12 May.
The 12 three-year-old toddlers, who participated in the research, did not eat any vegetables during the study. Instead, their mothers were given capsules containing carrot and kale powder when they were pregnant with them.
The chief researcher of the study, Professor Nadja Reissland of Durham University, told The Times that children form long-term memories of the smell they experience in the womb.
“Even at three years of age, the children actually preferred the smell of the flavour they had experienced in the womb,” she said.
Researchers from several universities — Durham University’s Department of Mathematical Sciences, Aston University, the University of Cambridge, Radboud University Medical Centre in the Netherlands, and the Centre for Taste, Smell and Feeding Behaviour Science — contributed to the study. They were sponsored by the French National Center for Scientific Research (CNRS) and the University of Burgundy in Dijon, France.
With the study, the researchers opened the possibilities of early dietary interventions.
“These findings give further support to the use of pre-natal exposure for improving children’s acceptance of often disliked vegetables,” said Professor Jacqueline Blissett of Aston University, the co-author of the study.
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For the study, wet cotton swabs were dipped in either carrot or kale powder, before being held under each kid’s nose. While some smiled, few made faces.
The reaction of the children were captured on video, and the footage was later analysed by researchers to see the reaction during gestation period and when they were newborns.
In the pre-birth study, fetuses, who were exposed to carrot flavour, were happier than kale-exposed kids.
While in the womb, babies swallow and inhale the amniotic fluid that surrounds the fetus. The food eaten by the mother passes into the fluid. The babies get to experience different flavours and smells in about 20 minutes after the mother has consumed the food.
Reissland said that the babies’ expressions depended on what their mothers consumed while being pregnant. For example, the mothers who had taken kale supplements, their kids surprisingly liked kale, irrespective of it being bitter. The pattern was reversed when carrot was tested with kids, whose mother had taken carrot capsules.
The negative facial expression among children reduces significantly since their birth, the study found. It pointed out that children’s sensory experience in the womb continues to influence how they respond as young children.
However, the researchers also admitted to only include a small number of participants from fetal stage to three years of age. They also agreed that the testing should have been just after birth rather than at three weeks, when they are being breastfed. Other factors like genetic influences on taste perception were not included in the study.
(Edited by Aamaan Alam Khan)