Poor nutrition in pregnancy can damage foetus’s brain

POOR nutrition early in pregnancy can cause a lifetime of damage to an unborn baby’s brain, research suggests.

Scientists studying baboons found that reducing the food intake of pregnant females had a major impact on their offspring’s brain development. Cells did not divide as they should and connections between neurons were not made.

The researchers compared two groups of baboon mothers at a primate centre run by the Southwest Foundation for Biomedical Research (SFBR) in Texas.