Samrawit Yisahak, PhD
Pregnant women who followed heart-healthy diets, such as ones resembling the Mediterranean diet, early in pregnancy tended to give birth to larger newborns. This finding was highlighted in an NICHD Division of Intramural Population Health Research (DIPHR) study using data from the NICHD Fetal Growth Studies – Singletons. Led by postdoctoral fellow Dr. Samrawit Yisahak, the analysis examined the relationship between newborn outcomes, including birthweight, limb length, and head size, with measures of early pregnancy dietary patterns in a racially diverse group of 1,948 women. The findings,published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, offer insight into which dietary measures assessed in pregnant women may be related to newborn health outcomes.
“Numerous diet quality measures are known to be linked to heart health, but how these dietary patterns in pregnancy may relate to newborn health has not been well studied in large, multiethnic groups of women,” said Dr. Yisahak. Along with her DIPHR colleagues, Dr. Yisahak set out to determine if several well-established diet quality measures influence newborn health outcomes, such as birthweight, body measurements, and preterm birth.
The researchers measured dietary patterns in pregnant women at eight to 13 weeks of gestation using a food frequency questionnaire that covered the previous three months. Each woman was assigned a score for three diet quality measures: Alternative Healthy Eating Index-2010 (AHEI-2010), alternate Mediterranean diet score (aMed), and Dietary Approaches to Hypertension (DASH). In general, better scores reflected intake of fruits, vegetables, whole grains, nuts and legumes, fish, and healthy fats. Lower scores stemmed from intake of red and processed meats, trans fats, sodium, and sugar-sweetened beverages. The researchers also used a common statistical technique, principal component analysis, to derive patterns of food consumption from the questionnaire responses, using My Pyramid Equivalent Database (MPED) food groups.
The primary findings show that better scores for AHEI-2010, aMed, and DASH diet quality measures in early pregnancy are associated with delivering larger newborns, as measured by the standard indicators of birthweight, length, upper arm length, skinfold thickness, and head size. Dietary patterns derived using questionnaire data and MPED serving units did not correlate with newborn outcomes.
“While we found that the three diet quality measures, especially aMed, are associated with beneficial outcomes such as reduced risk of low birthweight, there is also some evidence that they are associated with delivering larger newborns,” cautioned Dr. Yisahak. “A critical area of future research should be identifying the ideal diet pattern that is associated with optimal fetal growth.”
Dr. Yisahak emphasized that suboptimal diet is an important modifiable risk factor for many health outcomes across the lifespan. “Identifying and validating diet patterns for optimal fetal growth can help inform nutrition counseling during prenatal care and can also be used to evaluate programs and policies related to maternal and child health,” said Dr. Yisahak.
Reference
Yisahak SF, Mumford SL, Grewal J, Li M, Zhang C, Grantz KL, Hinkle SN. (2021). “Maternal Diet Patterns During Early Pregnancy in Relation to Neonatal Outcomes.” Am J Clin Nutr 00:1-10.