Mother's Health Before Conception May Influence Child's Disease Risk

July 22, 2009— -- A mother's health and diet just before conception and during the first few days of fetal development could have an impact on a child's health in the long run, researchers say.

New evidence on this crucial window of time -- much of it from animal studies -- was presented at this year's meeting of the Society for the Study of Reproduction in Pittsburgh.

Researchers found that the effects of nutrition, such as a high-fat diet and vitamin B and folate deficiencies, as well as diseases such as diabetes, during this time could trigger epigenetic changes that manifest in offspring as obesity, insulin resistance, and cardiovascular disease.

"All of our work suggests there should be a three- to four-month preconception period that's included in good maternal health," said Dr. Kelle Moley of Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, who presented one of the studies.

"Early dietary changes or early nutritional changes in the mom can effect epigenetic modifications," she said. "These are persistent in offspring and can be passed down across generations."

The researchers said that they became interested in this period of time after finding evidence of higher rates of genetic imprinting disorders in babies conceived via in-vitro fertilization.

"This opened the door to ideas that changes early in development could have long-term effects," Moley said.

"An unfertilized egg and early embryos are very sensitive to their environments," said Kevin Sinclair of the University of Nottingham in England, also an author of one of the studies.

Moley has been studying how diabetes affects production of a mother's egg cells, potentially leading to mitochondrial metabolic dysfunction -- and hence, birth defects.