How to eat make your baby smart, intelligent

Medically, pregnant women are advised to daily take folic acid and iron supplements along with their meals. Experts found that pregnant women who take enough folic acid and iron supplements give birth to smarter and highly intellectual kids, reports Sade Oguntola. The effects on a baby's health by the mother's activities and emotions during pregnancy carry on right into adulthood. The food and drink she consumes, the emotions and stresses she feels, the exercise she takes, and even the job she does - is shared in some fashion with her unborn child.

A mother's diet affects the chances of her baby's obesity, and this relationship persists into the child's adolescent years. Experts found that offspring of pregnant mothers who were fed junk food were 95 per cent more likely to overeat than those whose mothers had eaten healthy food.Sadly, the same is true for opposite effects. Babies of mothers starved of basic nutrients for proper growth, especially in the first three months of pregnancy, have an increased risk of diabetes, heart disease and even low intelligent quotient, later in life.

Studies have also shown that pregnant women in developing countries where iron deficiency is common, who take enough folic acid and iron supplementation, give birth to smarter and highly intellectual kids.

Certainly, some mothers are aware that taking folic acid supplements before and during pregnancy helps to lower the risk of birth defects such as neural tube defects, congenital heart disease, and oral clefts in newborn babies; they probably don't know that folic acid, combined with iron supplements, may make children smarter and highly intellectual.But researchers in a study of 676 school-age Nepalese children whose mothers had been in a clinical trial in which some got iron and folic acid supplements and other nutrients were able to show that pregnant women can make a difference in their children's cognitive performance.

Certainly, asking pregnant mothers to take folic acid and iron supplements is an age long practice.  "folic acid is necessary for the development of the central nervous system, which includes the brain. This is why when women get pregnant, one of the things we are always talking about is the need for them to take folic acid."

"it means taking folic acid will make the brain develop better."

Although folic acid deficiency is not too common, he declared that a common medical practice is to ask women that had children with abnormal central nervous system to daily take folic acid before they get pregnant again in order to prevent the reoccurrence of the problem."

Iron helps in blood formation. "If a woman has a good Packed Cell Volume (PCV), she is likely to have adequate oxygenation of the body tissues. That would also boost the health of the child the pregnant woman would give," Dr Aimakhu explained."Studies in Ibadan that compared pregnant women who have low PCV (anaemia) with those with high PCV found that those that were anaemic had children with poor scores at birth.

Taking medication as prescribed by the doctor is crucial to improving health and ensuring well-being. No medication lasts in the body for more than 24 hours. So, its rate of elimination from the body will determine whether it is to be taken two a day or three times a day.

Folic acid and iron supplements are not exceptions either. In ensuring their regular intake in pregnancy, Dr Aimakhu suggested the use of multivitamin capsules that contain folic acid and iron in them.

It is difficult to know the nutritive composition of most meals served in Nigeria, unlike the case in developed countries of the world. According to the medical expert, "all pregnant women must take multivitamins that contain iron and folic acid because a lot of the meals are deficient in these vitamins."

"Many individuals take a lot of carbohydrate and little vitamins. Very few people take calcium and other minerals that are necessary for body functions in their diets. The stew or soups many times are burnt or over boiled. So the pregnant woman is better off complying with the instruction of daily intake of supplement."

Such complaints as 'folic acid and iron supplements make my stool black in colour' should not be a reason to comply. According to Dr Aimakhu, "we now have multivitamins that contains these required nutrients. The vitamins are better absorbed and excreted from the body. Such common complaints as excretion of black stools are not there anymore."

Keep a healthy diet. Regularly consume a plate of bacon and eggs. According to University of North Carolina scientist's, a chemical in pork products and eggs may help develop your unborn baby's brain cells. Eat fish two or more times a week to improve your baby's language and motor skills. Talk to your doctor about which types of fish are safe to consume during pregnancy.

Obviously, children's cognitive performance is influenced not only by environmental interventions such as school attendance. Like this study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association emphasised, the importance of their mother's iron and folic acid status during pregnancy crucial in ensure proper development of the brain.

No doubt, developing nations which hold the maximum numbers of poor and socially backward people can witness a transformation in the educational future of children if pregnant women have access to iron supplements, since children in those countries are iron-deficient.

Obviously, the World Health Organisation's report that over 50 per cent of pregnant women in developing countries are anaemic suggests that many women become more lax about folic acid and iron supplementation as pregnancy progresses.  And that's not a good thing. While folic acid supplements are most important before and during the early months of pregnancy, iron supplementation is most critical at the end.

Evidently, more and more women are getting information on the health benefits of eating right and taking their prescribed folic acid and iron tablets.

Take good care of your teeth while you are pregnant. Dental problems during pregnancy can cause your baby to be born premature or underweight; these baby's tend to have more trouble with learning. Smoking during pregnancy bears the same risk, in addition to further health problems.