Pregnant Mothers Fatty Diet Unhealthy for Baby

Pregnant mothers’ diet may be unknowingly placing her baby’s health at risk via her genes .
These are the findings of recent researchers conducted at the Wellcome Trust Centre for Human Genetics at the University of Oxford which discovered that mothers who stick to a high fat diet prior to and during pregnancy affect the kind or severity of birth defect.
In a study involving mice, the team uncovered that found that a combination of a high fat diet and deficiency of Cited2 (a gene which aids the prevention of serious heart defects), heightens the risk of congenital heart defects.
It has been known for a while that an unhealthy diet and defective genes can impact development. However, in this study the effect of the combination of the two has been seen to cause a much higher risk of in terms of development of health problems and more serious health problems.
The study was of course of mice. However, a similar link could exist amongst humans, leading to specific individuals developing congenital heart disease .