Did you know that during pregnancy your baby can taste what you eat? Now, on today’s in-utero menu…
You may think your baby will have no concept of taste until he takes his first swallow of milk, or perhaps even when you start him on solid foods. But you may be surprised to learn that he will have experienced his first flavors as early as 13 weeks from conception, when his taste buds started to develop.
From 11 weeks your baby will learn how to swallow, and begin to gulp mouthfuls of the amniotic fluid that surrounds him in the uterus. The composition of amniotic fluid changes during the first trimester from a primarily water-based solution, similar to blood plasma, to one containing nutritional substances including carbohydrates, proteins, and fats, which contribute to his healthy growth and development.
A baby will ingest significant quantities of this fluid each day, not only for hydration and nutrition, but also to practice the essential skills of swallowing and digesting. However, the amniotic fluid actually carries a discernible flavor, one that changes according to the foods eaten by the mother.
So, once your baby’s taste buds are sufficiently developed, he will be able to taste different flavors within the fluid, all influenced by the foods that you eat yourself. The taste receptors that form on the baby’s tongue develop quickly, as do the corresponding receptors in the nasal passages, providing a way for the baby to sense the fluid’s taste and, crucially, its smell.
It is believed that as much as 90 percent of a human’s sense of taste is actually influenced by the smell receptors, and therefore it is the strongly flavored foods, such as spices, that are most readily conveyed to your baby. Why not test this theory yourself?
If you eat some spicy or pungent food and wait for about two hours, which is the time it takes for the flavor to reach the amniotic fluid, you might feel your baby respond, perhaps by hiccupping—you’ll feel them as small, regular spasms—or even by wiggling around more than usual.
On the other hand, your baby might be disappointingly unresponsive! Either way you don’t need to worry, strong flavors won’t distress your baby, they just help to provide him with more varied sensations to prepare for life on the outside.
In fact, researchers have noted that babies who are exposed to certain tastes in the uterus are more eager to eat foods with that same flavor once they have been born.
A study conducted by researchers in Philadelphia examined a group of pregnant women by dividing them into three groups : one group drank a glass of carrot juice four times a week during pregnancy, and then switched to drinking just water once the babies had been born and were breast-feeding.
The second group drank water during pregnancy and switched to carrot juice while they were breast-feeding. The last group avoided carrot juice entirely.
Strongly flavored foods with volatile compounds, such as those found in vegetables, fruits, garlic, and spices, transmit most easily into the amniotic fluid.
When the babies were weaned and just starting to eat solid foods, the researchers then offered them two kinds of cereal: plain and carrot-flavored.
The babies who had been exposed to carrot juice, either via their mother’s amniotic fluid or their breast milk, were more willing to eat the carrotflavored cereal and were less likely to grimace than those babies who had never tasted carrot.
Further research has been done to test whether the smell transmitted to the amniotic fluid by certain foods was actually discernible. Researchers gave a group of pregnant women either garlic capsules or sugar capsules to swallow, and then took a sample of their amniotic fluid.
When an independent group of people were asked to do a smell test, the samples from the women who had swallowed garlic capsules were readily detectable.
So, it seems you really are what you eat! And, strange as it may seem, whatever you put on your menu is not only filtering straight to your baby, but probably influencing his future taste preferences as well.
French scientists did a study to support this idea: 12 pregnant women were given cookies and candy laced with aniseed during the 10 days or so leading up to birth. Hours after the women had given birth, their babies’ reactions to the smell of aniseed were compared with babies who had not previously been exposed to the smell.
Those who had sensed the strong flavor in the uterus seemed to like it more when presented with it after birth. The babies who had not been exposed to the flavor either reacted with disgust or indifference.
As an extension of this, prenatal and early postnatal exposure to a flavor is believed to enhance infants’ enjoyment of that taste, both when starting solids and beyond into adulthood. This may go some way in explaining why different countries have specific cultural and ethnic preferences for cuisine and flavors.
A Mexican child, for instance, will grow up with preferences for tastes that differ from those shown by a French, Chinese, or Indian child— and this predilection can, to an extent, be explained by their exposure to those very first amniotic tastes. Maintaining a healthy and balanced diet during pregnancy is essential for nourishing your developing baby.
However, by adhering to a varied diet you may well also be paving the way for your child to be born with an innate enjoyment of healthy foods. So next time you are rummaging in the fridge or cookie jar, spare a thought for the little one inside you. A potential sweet tooth could be substituted for a lifelong love of broccoli if you play your cards right.