How good nutrition before and during pregnancy can affect the baby, both before birth and later in life.
In the video, Prof. Dr. İkbal Kaygusuz describes a healthy future as the most important legacy a parent can leave a baby, and explains how this is linked to nutrition. She stresses that eating well from before conception until the end of pregnancy plays an important part in giving the baby a healthy start in life.
Poor nutrition can increase the risk of problems such as pre-eclampsia, gestational diabetes and preterm birth, which can mean the baby starts life early and in intensive care. The video also notes that even for babies who get through pregnancy without these problems, exposure to poor nutrition in the womb may raise the risk later in life of metabolic problems such as diabetes, high blood pressure and heart disease.
To make the point concrete, she uses an analogy: anyone would be alarmed to find that someone had fed their two-day-old baby, without their knowledge, a formula made from rice flour. The video asks mothers not to do to their baby in the womb, through poor nutrition, what they would never allow someone else to do.
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