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Mediterranean Diet for Babies

When it comes to preventing birth defects, there’s nothing like a big, leafy Greek salad.

That’s according to a new report from the March of Dimes, which cites research showing people who eat a classic Mediterranean diet – high in leafy green vegetables, olive oil, and fruit – are less likely to give birth to children with inherited birth defects, such as spina bifida.

Countries such as France, Spain and Italy, for example, report the least number of birth defects anywhere in the world, the report found. Researchers credit the low rates to the Mediterranean diet, which is high in folates, known to prevent these problems in infants.

In the United States, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration was so concerned about the rate of birth defects that it required the addition of folic acid to enriched breads, flours and cereals in 1998. Since that time, birth defects have dropped 26 percent in this country. Folic acid is also included in pre-natal vitamins, which expectant mothers are encouraged to take daily.

Every year, roughly 10 million children in the world are born with some type of birth defect. Many of these are genetic or partially-genetic in origin.  Some are caused by maternal exposures to environmental contaminants.  While scientists used to believe that it took high level exposures for chemicals to cause defects, new science is revealing that some contaminants act at much lower levels by interacting with the baby’s genes, in the womb. According to the March of Dimes, more than 3 million of these children die before the age of 5.

For more information about birth defects, go to http://www.marchofdimes.com/professionals/871_18587.asp or www.birthdefects.org

To learn about the effects of low-level exposures, click here.

To read more about this and other environmental health issues, go to www.environmentalhealthnews.org, www.ourstolenfuture.org or www.healthandenvironment.org.