Eating lots of vegetables and fruits during pregnancy may lower the chance of having a baby with certain allergies like wheezing and eczema.
Beta carotene and vitamin E are two of many vegetable and fruit antioxidants thought to benefit health. But prior investigations of maternal antioxidant intake and childhood allergies offered conflicting findings.
To evaluate whether vegetable and fruit intake during pregnancy prevents the baby from developing early-age eczema or allergic wheeze, researchers from Japan studied 763 women and their babies. The women were 30 years old on average and about 17 weeks pregnant when they reported personal and medical history. When their babies were between 16 and 24 months old, the women provided birth and breastfeeding history, number of older siblings, and exposure to smoke.
It was found that 21 percent of the youngsters wheezed or had a whistling in the chest in the last 12 months, and fewer than 19 percent had eczema. Mothers who ate greater amounts of green and yellow vegetables, citrus fruits, or beta carotene while pregnant were less apt to have an infant with eczema. For example, after allowing for other eczema risk factors, eczema was more common among infants of moms who ate the least versus the most green and yellow vegetables - 54 and 32 infants, respectively. Likewise, higher intake of vitamin E during pregnancy was associated a reduced likelihood of having a wheezy infant.
The researchers recommended moms-to-be to boost their intake of green and yellow vegetables, citrus fruits, and antioxidants such as beta-carotene and vitamin E to protect their babies from early-age allergies.