Children of mothers who eat plenty of apples or fish during pregnancy are less likely to develop asthma, or eczema research suggests.

The University of Aberdeen project quizzed 2,000 mothers-to-be on their eating habits, then looked at their child’s health over five years.

They found that those who ate four or more apples a week were half as likely to have an asthmatic child compared with those who ate one or fewer.

The study was presented at the American Thoracic Society conference.

This study suggests a simple modification that can be made to a pregnant mother’s diet which may help protect her child from developing asthma Dr Victoria King, Asthma UK

The researchers also found a link between eating more fish in pregnancy, and a lower chance of their child developing the allergic skin condition eczema.

Women who ate one or more portions of any type of fish during pregnancy weekly had almost half the chance of having a child diagnosed with eczema within the first five years.

There are no firm clues as to why apples and fish might be able to produce this benefit - no other foodstuffs were linked to decreases in asthma or eczema.

However, apples are already linked to better lung health when taken by adults, perhaps due to their antioxidant properties, and oily fish in particular contain Omega-3 oils, which, it has been suggested, offer health benefits.
It is, however, notoriously difficult to uncover links between maternal diet and child health, given the numerous other factors which may be involved in the development of diseases such as asthma and eczema.

The Aberdeen team has a group of 2,000 women, who, more than five years ago, monitored their food intake during pregnancy, and then allowed researchers to see what happened to their children.

-BBC

Long known to help prevent birth defects, folic acid may also help prevent premature births, new research suggests.

In a large study that included almost 40,000 women, a team of U.S. and Irish researchers found that women who took folic acid supplements for a year or longer before conception had a 70 percent decreased risk of preterm birth between 20 and 28 weeks of gestation.

Dr. Katherine Wenstrom said it’s likely that folic acid is regulating certain genes that malfunction to cause early labor. “Now that we know that folic acid makes a huge difference, researchers can look at the different reactions that folic acid causes and see which might be related to preterm labor,” she said.

A premature birth is one that occurs before 37 weeks’ gestation, according to the U.S. National Institutes of Health (NIH). Improved medical knowledge and technology have made survival for these small infants more likely — of babies born at 28 weeks or after, 90 percent are expected to survive, according to the NIH.

But the earlier a baby is delivered, the greater the risk of serious complications, including bleeding in the brain, infection, delayed growth and intestinal problems, according to the NIH.

The new study included 38,033 women pregnant with one baby. Women who had known pregnancy complications, such as preeclampsia or high blood pressure, and women pregnant with babies with known chromosomal or other birth defects weren’t included in the study.

The researchers found that women who took a folic acid supplement for at least a year prior to becoming pregnant reduced their risk of preterm delivery between 20 and 28 weeks of gestation by 70 percent. A year of folic acid supplementation dropped the risk of delivering during weeks 28 through 32 by 50 percent, according to the study.

“This study saw a huge decrease in spontaneous preterm delivery for women who took folic acid for one year prior to conception. Now we can add prevention of prematurity to the mix of reasons for all women to take an additional folic acid supplement,” said Dr. Alan Fleischman, senior vice president and medical director of the March of Dimes.

In the meantime, Wenstrom said she believes that everyone — both male and female — should take a daily folic acid supplement in addition to a multivitamin containing folic acid.

“Cereal and grain products are fortified with folic acid, but the level of fortification isn’t optimal. Folic acid influences so many things. It reduces the risk of stroke, cardiovascular disease, and it prevents birth defects,” she said. “It’s a simple preventive measure for a variety of severe problems.”

The March of Dimes recommends that women take 400 micrograms daily of folic acid before becoming pregnant, and continuing to take folic acid throughout the pregnancy.

By Serena Gordon

Sometimes I walk down the street just to stroll. I live in Brooklyn, NY so I don’t have much space in the apartment so I like to go out and just get some fresh air. When the weather is good, I sometimes go to Marine Park. It it something like Central Park in Manhattan, but on a much smaller scale in Brooklyn.

Over the summer I must have been there at least 50 times. I used to go a couple of times a week just to get my head straight and think.

One day I saw this father and son playing some baseball. The kid must have been about five years old. I was sitting on the bench watching them thinking how nice it is to spend some quality time with your children. They were playing for about 20 minutes when all of a sudden I heard the father screaming at his son how “he’s so stupid for missing the ball”, how “he’s a dumb kid”, and “how he doesn’t know how to play”. I was in shock. I wanted to go over and scream at the father and defend the kid, but truthfully I was too scared myself. The father looked like a monster screaming like that.

The father left to go to the water fountain about 20 feet away. The kid just stood there not knowing what to do. Finally the father called the kid over to have a drink. The kid smiled. He started walking over to the water fountain. The father was walking back, patted the kids hair. I guess he was trying to make everything okay with his son again. The kid got to the water fountain, but there was another kid there before him that was drinking. What I saw next shocked me. The kid pushed the boy away, and started screaming at him. While I couldn’t hear exactly what one kid was screaming to the other, but I did see that kid exactly mimicking his father.

I was very distraught with the situation but I thought it was a one time occurance. Then I came by this extremely powerful video a few days ago, and decided I had to write this post.

Remember what you do in front of your kids; THEY WILL MIMIC AND FOLLOW EVERYTHING! You may think they are not watching, or they really don’t understand what you are doing, BUT THEY DO! It is not fair for these kids to get this kind of education. Please be careful in front of your kids and watch your every move in front of them.

Here is one of the most powerful (and sad) videos I have ever seen: