Baby Mozart may be the go-to to give your child an early brain boost, but it might actually be more important for moms-to-be to focus on what they snack on instead. According to a recent study by researchers at the University of Alberta, one food group just might do the trick — fruit!
The findings are preliminary, but they certainly are intriguing: By analyzing data on 688 children who were a part of the Canadian Healthy Infant Longitudinal Development study, the researchers found that every additional serving of fruit a woman consumed per day during pregnancy corresponded with an increase in her child’s cognitive scores one year after birth, the Wall Street Journal reports. In the past, only one other food — fish — has been linked to a boost in children’s cognitive development.
Dr. Piush Mandhane, an associate professor of pediatrics at University of Alberta and one of the two senior authors of the paper, told the Journal that he was surprised by the strong correlation between a pregnant woman’s fruit consumption and her child’s increased cognitive scores. But even still, this study should only be taken as a mere suggestion.
“We don’t want pregnant women to go out and eat a tremendous amount of fruit,” Dr. Mandhane said. “It’s a single study, and we haven’t looked at the health effects of increased fruit intake.” (As the Journal notes in its article on the study, eating too much fruit during pregnancy might increase a woman’s risk of developing gestational diabetes or lead to excessive weight gain.)
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