Introduction
Preterm birth, which happens when a baby is born before 37 weeks of pregnancy, is still the leading cause of neonatal death worldwide. Every year, about 15 million babies are born too early, and complications from these births result in the loss of nearly one million infants. Even for those who make it, preterm babies are more likely to face various health challenges, both short-term and long-term, like cognitive problems, cerebral palsy, infections, feeding issues, hearing and vision impairments, and developmental delays. The World Health Organization (WHO) has reported that preterm birth rates in 184 countries range from five to 18 percent.
The rise in preterm births could be tied to a few things, like more babies being born to women over 34, higher rates of multiple births, a trend towards more cesarean sections, and shifts in diet during pregnancy. Preterm birth affects families and society financially, and it also increases the risk of having a preterm birth in future pregnancies.
How Do Maternal Dietary Patterns Affect the Risk of Preterm Birth?
Early pregnancy is crucial for developing the placenta and fetal tissues, and by the end of the first trimester, the baby is pretty much fully formed. So, what a woman eats before pregnancy can have a big impact on how well things go right from the start. While adjusting diet during pregnancy might help with weight gain, it does not seem to make a huge difference in birth outcomes. How well a mother’s nutrition during pregnancy depends greatly on the nutrients she had stored before getting pregnant, like calcium and iron. Keeping good nutrition before conception is key for ensuring a solid nutritional base for a healthy pregnancy and good outcomes.
Pregnancy is a pretty intricate process, and what a woman eats during pregnancy matters for her health and the baby’s growth. Evidence shows poor nutrition, like insufficient Vitamin D, B12, Vitamin E, calcium, or zinc, is linked to preterm birth. However, most past studies have only examined one nutrient at a time. The connection between diet and premature birth is complex, and we must consider how different nutrients and foods interact.
Lately, examining dietary patterns has become helpful in understanding these complicated links between diet and disease because it looks at overall food intake and the mix of nutrients. Given that maternal diet is one factor we can control more quickly than others, studying how different eating patterns affect preterm birth makes sense. Some international research has looked into how various dietary patterns during pregnancy relate to preterm birth. Findings suggest that certain diets, like prudent diets, traditional diets, the DASH diet (dietary approaches to stop hypertension), a vegetable-fruit-rice pattern, and the Mediterranean diet, might help lower the risk of preterm birth. On the other hand, the Western dietary pattern could increase the risk.
Which Diets Are Beneficial During Pregnancy?
Diets before pregnancy can affect the risk of preterm birth and low birth weight (LBW). Usually, eating healthy pregnancy meals rich in traditional vegetables before pregnancy is linked to a lower risk of preterm birth and incredibly spontaneous preterm birth. However, the connection between pre-pregnancy diets and LBW is not clear. Studies have found that diets high in vegetables and dairy might lower the risk of preterm birth. However, diets high in fat and sugar are tied to a higher risk of preterm birth. The link between diet and LBW is still unclear.
A balanced pre-pregnancy diet, which includes a lot of fruits and vegetables and cuts down on added sugars and fast foods, is associated with a reduced risk of preterm birth. Some interventions, like offering snacks rich in vegetables and dairy before and during pregnancy, have shown some modest effects on LBW but have not made a big impact on preterm birth risk.
Differences in study results might be because of variations in study design, sample sizes, and how diets are measured and analyzed. Diets high in vegetables, like carrots, broccoli, and green beans, are of higher quality. These veggies are full of antioxidants, anti-inflammatory nutrients, and fibers that might help reduce inflammation and oxidative stress, which could lower the risk of preterm birth.
Also, maternal diet might affect birth outcomes directly or through changes in fetal epigenetics, which involve changes in gene expression. The time before conception is crucial for setting up gene activity and DNA protection, with nutrients like folates, iron, zinc, vitamin B-12, and antioxidants playing important roles. Prepregnancy body mass index (BMI) also has a role in this relationship, possibly affecting how diet impacts the risk of preterm birth. More research is needed to understand better how pre-pregnancy BMI fits into this picture.
What Is the Link Between Nutrition and Preterm Birth?
Women who followed the Healthy Eating Index (HEI) - 2015 diet guidelines before pregnancy had a lower risk for preterm babies. Many studies do not look at how prepregnancy BMI interacts with diet to affect birth outcomes. Obesity and poor diet might affect birth outcomes through inflammation or gene expression changes, and they might also work together to increase inflammation, which raises the risk of complications.
High-fat diets and obesity, along with higher levels of glucose, triglycerides, and inflammatory markers in mothers, can also affect birth outcomes and baby’s health. Some studies found that inflammatory diets in mothers are connected with higher levels of C-reactive protein and an increased risk of preterm birth. Antioxidants or anti-inflammatory diets might help reduce inflammation and improve outcomes, especially for obese women.
There is also some evidence that outcomes of preconception diets might vary depending on the baby’s sex, with more noticeable effects in boys. This could be because male and female placentas respond differently to maternal diets, which can impact growth and development. In addition, prepregnancy BMI and baby sex had only minor effects on dietary patterns in the study, so these results might not be very reliable.
Conclusion
Eating traditional vegetables before pregnancy can lower the risk of preterm birth. This is especially true for spontaneous preterm birth. A study found that a higher intake of carrots, potatoes, cauliflower, broccoli, pumpkins, cabbages, and green beans is linked to a lower risk of preterm birth. Good diet quality before pregnancy is important. This is particularly true in places with high obesity and preterm birth rates. Eating more traditional vegetables before pregnancy might help improve outcomes.
