What mother hasn’t struggled to get a young child to eat green vegetables? Start introducing these foods at an early age is the usual advice. But new research shows that mums may not be establishing healthy eating habits soon enough. It turns out that babies can learn to love vegetables while still in the womb.
Researchers at Durham University gave a group of women either carrot powder capsules or kale powder capsules during their pregnancy. After birth, these babies gave smile responses to the smell of either carrot or kale. Babies who had not been exposed to these small, repeated doses of vegetable powder made it quite clear what their feelings were about carrot and kale.
Professor Nadja Reissland said: “The memory of food the mother consumes during pregnancy appears to establish a preference for those smells and potentially could help to establish healthy eating habits at a young age.”
Amazing
“Unborn babies are truly amazing”, said Karolina Tatteral, mother of four-week-old Aurelia. “Nothing would surprise me about what babies in the womb are capable of, so this study makes perfect sense to me. A few weeks ago I certainly noticed that while she was in my womb, my daughter was well aware of her four noisy older brothers. We know about an unborn baby’s sense of hearing and now we know more about their sense of taste.”
This latest study builds on work done in 2022 where the same researchers used 4D ultrasound scans to monitor the facial expressions of unborn babies after their mums had taken a capsule of either carrot or kale powder. There was a higher rate of laugh responses to the sweeter carrot flavour and, not surprisingly, a cry response to the more bitter tasting kale.
Join the dots
A public health campaign to encourage mothers-to-be to eat more vegetables is to be welcomed. But research like this presents a challenge to the pro-life community. How do we help people to join the dots and understand that babies capable of recognising vegetables smells shortly after birth are exactly the same as babies who are aborted and never get the chance to taste a carrot?
While the majority of babies killed by abortion are under ten weeks gestation (88% as recorded in 2022, according to the latest figures), before their sense of taste has developed, these babies were no less human and deserving of life than babies who do reach the point where they can develop a taste for vegetables.
We have a big task in continually proclaiming the humanity and dignity of every baby from the moment of conception. Telling a newly pregnant mum that her baby is amazing and will be able to tell the difference between carrots and kale before birth could make all the difference to a mum who is feeling conflicted about her pregnancy. We might not know a woman’s back story, but a kind word of affirmation and a loving smile from a pro-lifer is maybe what she needs.
Window to the womb
An academic paper in 2018 which looked at studies on the link between mums eating peanuts and the impact on their unborn babies found that: “Although older studies suggest an increased risk of childhood peanut allergy with maternal peanut ingestion, recent studies suggest that peanut intake in pregnancy may have a preventive effect on development of peanut allergy in children.”
Again, while this paper is important in informing about the serious issue of peanut allergy, it’s also another window into the world of the unborn baby. Unborn babies are hidden from view, but they are profoundly connected to the world outside in ways we are only just beginning to understand.
Every new piece of information about life in the womb should be taking us another step towards making abortion unthinkable. But society won’t make that connection on its own. That’s our job.
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