Fat Pregnant Mom? Fat Baby? Maybe
Now I know I must take responsibility for this. Even though I tried not to, I took being pregnant as license to eat whatever I wanted, whenever I wanted. As a result, I gained 50 pounds (that took nine months to gain and over two years to lose). A new study just out says that women who eat high-fat foods while pregnant may not only produce big babies, but actually change their offsprings' brains in the way they think about food. I'm in the stats for the first part -- my son, who was delivered at 39 weeks because of his size, weighed in at nine pounds (though the doctors, who actually set up a betting pool, were thinking a 10- or 11-pounder), but not the second. This kid, at 12, doesn't even tip the scales at 80 pounds. The study, done by the National Institutes of Health’s National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases, found that "exposure to a high-fat diet in the womb and after birth can permanently change the cells in the brain that ...