A recent study explains that high consumption of refined grains by pregnant women with gestational diabetes may expose their newborns to the risk of obesity. The study found that mothers who ate the least quantity of refined grain (less than 37 grams per day) were at lesser risk as compared to pregnant women who ate more (156 grams a day) of refined grains a day. Children's risk of obesity persisted even if they were physically active or consumed a stable diet. For the study, published in the 'American Journal of Clinical Nutrition', the team compared records from 918 mother-child pairs.

The findings, published in the Journal Pediatrics, show that apart from health related issues, children of obese mothers were nearly 70 per cent more likely to fail tests of fine motor skill the ability to control movement of small muscles, such as those in the fingers and hands by age 3, when compared to children of normal-weight mothers.

Similar studies and researches point at the possibility of tracing chronic childhood health issues back to parents' health and the pregnancy.

Read More