Low Fiber During Pregnancy Affects Brain Development

Undernutrition during pregnancy is one of the risk factors for diseases in children as they grow older. Nonetheless, maternal malnutrition remains a global issue for women. A low-fiber diet during pregnancy has been proven in animal experiments to decrease brain neuron function in offspring. Researchers in Japan have now studied if the same effects might be detected in people in the first human cohort study on the relationship between maternal nutritional imbalance and infant brain development.

“Most pregnant women in Japan consume far less dietary fiber than what is the recommended intake,” said Dr. Kunio Miyake, a researcher at the University of Yamanashi and first author of the study published in Frontiers in Nutrition. “Our results provided reinforcing evidence that undernutrition during pregnancy is associated with an increased risk of neurodevelopmental delay in children.”

Brain development fiber

Miyake et al. contrasted the development of children whose mothers ingested the most dietary fiber during pregnancy to groups of moms who consumed progressively less fiber during pregnancy.

Children of low-intake moms were more likely to have neurodevelopmental delays than children of high-intake mothers. The effect of maternal fiber deficiency was observed in a number of domains associated to brain function. Communication skills, problem-solving skills, and personal-social skills were all impacted. The researchers also discovered delays in the development of big body part movement and coordination, as well as local muscle coordination.

The findings are based on an examination of over 76,000 mother-infant pairs from the Japan Environment and Children’s Study. It is an ongoing project aimed at determining how the environment influences the health of children.

The investigators employed a food frequency questionnaire to obtain dietary information from the subjects, which queried respondents about their dietary status during the second and third trimesters of pregnancy. Another questionnaire was issued to parents after their children were three years old to measure developmental deficits. The researchers discovered a link between maternal fiber consumption and child brain development based on parental responses.

Nutritional Guidance is Vital

The researchers also discovered that the average dietary fiber consumption in Japan is little more than 10 grams per day. Only 8.4% of pregnant Japanese women ingested adequate fiber. They also mentioned that the recommended fiber intake for pregnant women varies: in Japan, the recommended daily dietary fiber consumption is 18 grams per day, but in the United States and Canada, it is 28 grams. “Our findings show that nutritional counseling for pregnant mothers is critical for lowering the risk of future health problems in their children,” Miyake added.

The researchers also pointed to certain limitations of their study. “Human studies cannot assess the effects of dietary fiber alone. Although this study considered the impact of folic acid intake during pregnancy, the possibility of other nutrients having an impact cannot be completely ruled out,” Miyake pointed out. “In addition, dietary fiber intake from supplements could not be investigated.”

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