Early exposure to certain foods during pregnancy may help children become more accepting of vegetables later in life, according to a new study.
Researchers at universities in the United Kingdom, France, and the Netherlands gave a group of pregnant women capsules containing kale powder and another group capsules containing carrot powder.
They then used ultrasound scans to examine and code the facial reactions of the foetuses after exposure to the flavours at 32 and 36 weeks of pregnancy.
The children were observed again when they were around three weeks old. Most recently, 12 of the children were studied at the age of three.
For the latest stage, wet cotton swabs dipped in either carrot or kale powder were held under each child’s nose.
Their reactions were filmed and analysed, with researchers looking for facial expressions described as either a “laughter face” or a “cry face”.
The team then compared these responses with the reactions recorded before birth and shortly after birth.
The results suggested that children who had been exposed to carrots before birth reacted more positively to the smell of carrots at age three, while showing a more negative reaction to kale. Children exposed to kale showed a similar pattern, reacting more positively to kale than to carrots.
Researchers say the findings add to earlier research suggesting that babies can sense flavours from their mother’s diet before birth.
This could be useful for parents trying to encourage children to accept vegetables.
“From this we can suggest that being exposed to a particular flavour in late pregnancy can result in long-lasting flavour or odour memory in children, potentially shaping their food preferences years after birth,” said Nadja Reissland, the lead author of the study and psychologist at Durham University.
However, the research team said the study involved a small sample of mothers and children.
Researchers also said more work is needed to understand whether repeated exposure to certain flavours during pregnancy affects how much children eat those vegetables later in life, and whether other factors, such as genetics, play a role.
The study titled Do Human Fetuses Form Long-Lasting Chemosensory Memories? was published in the journal Developmental Psychobiology.
