- Researchers are reporting that women who follow a vegan diet in pregnancy may have a higher risk of preeclampsia and having babies with a lower birth weight.
- Experts note the sample size of vegans in the study was small and the results should be interpreted with caution.
- Dietitians say a vegan diet in pregnancy can be healthy if it is well planned.
Women who eat a vegan diet in pregnancy may have a higher risk of developing preeclampsia and having newborns with a lower birth weight.
That’s according to
“We observed a lower mean birth weight among the few mothers who adhered to vegan diets during pregnancy compared with omnivorous mothers. We acknowledge that finding an association in an observational study cannot lead to conclusions on causality. But future studies should put more emphasis on characterizing the diet among those adhering to vegan diets and other forms of plant-based diets during pregnancy,” the study authors wrote.
“This would allow for stronger assumptions on possible causality between any association observed with birth or pregnancy outcomes in such studies and strengthen the basis for dietary recommendations,” they added.
The researchers examined data from more than 66,000 pregnancies in Denmark between 1996 and 2002.
More than 98% of the mothers considered themselves omnivorous and ate both plant-based foods along with meat. About 1% were vegetarians who also ate fish and poultry while 0.3% were lacto/ovo-vegetarians and ate no meat but did eat dairy and eggs, and 0.03% were vegan.
Intake of protein was lowest among vegans and intake of macronutrients was also noticeably lower.
The authors note that their findings should be interpreted with caution, due to…
Read the full article here