How Mom’s Diet Impacts Baby’s Gut Health

Abstract

What a mom eats before her baby is born can impact the baby’s development. In this experiment, we fed pregnant mice an unhealthy high-fat diet to see the effect on the intestines of the baby mice after they were born. We found that the babies had more of a certain type of immune cell and that their intestines were more easily damaged compared to babies whose moms ate a healthier diet. In the second part of the experiment, we blocked the effects of these unusual immune cells and saw that the intestines of these babies became more resistant to damage, almost like those of baby mice whose moms ate healthy diets. Our research shows how important it is for moms to eat healthy foods when they are pregnant, to keep the newborn baby’s gut healthy.