Nuts give brain boost to babies

WOMEN who eat nuts during the early stages of pregnancy may have brighter children, a study has discovered.

Researchers who gave cognitive tests to children between the ages of one and eight found they performed better if their mother had consumed at least a handful of nuts a week in the first three months of pregnancy. The best results came from children whose mothers had three or more handfuls of nuts a week.

Experts believe that fatty acids found in nuts may pass through to babies in the womb, boosting brain development at a vital early stage.

Florence Gignac, lead author of the study from Barcelona Institute of Global Health, said: ‘The brain undergoes a series of complex processes during gestation, and this means that maternal nutrition is a determining factor in foetal brain development and can have long-term effects.’

The study, which was published in the European Journal of Epidemiology, found there was no link with thinking skills for the children of women who ate nuts in the final three months of pregnancy. This may be due to a baby’s brain developing less by this late stage.