The first 1000 days of life count towards future health
1. What you eat from the moment of conception (or even before) can profoundly influence your child’s health as an adult.
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2. What your baby eats and drinks before their second birthday can make them more or less likely to develop heart disease.
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3. The gut microflora established in your child’s first two years of life can greatly influence their long term immunity.
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4. It’s not just mums – what dads do before conception can have huge and lasting effects on the adult health of their offspring.
5. It’s not just eating for two, but for three, four or five. Effects of poor nutrition while in utero can be seen in generations that follow.
6. Breastfeeding plays a role in the way genes express themselves, making it even more important than previously thought.
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7. DNA is not a dictator – what you do during pregnancy and through the first two years of baby’s life can influence the way it works.
8. It’s not all genes and lifestyle: what happens in the womb and during the first two years can affect a child’s adult health.
9. Cardiovascular disease and diabetes: both influenced by what happens to you before you are even born.
10. Giving your small baby more food in order to help them catch up to bigger babies can damage their adult health.
11. Not eating properly in pregnancy can make your unborn baby more likely to be affected by their poor lifestyle choices.
12. Stressed out dads produce offspring who themselves cannot handle stress. It’s all about epigenetics.
13. Type II diabetes not all about adult lifestyle choices: what happens before you’re even born can play a big part.
14. Your baby’s brain develops extremely rapidly in the womb and during the first two years of life. What happens in this earliest period is therefore vital to brain health throughout life.
15. Want to make your baby’s good genes work harder and their bad genes switch off? It’s all about nutrition in the first two years of life.
16. Choices that you make while you’re pregnant will affect your child’s adult health and even the health of your grandchildren.
17. Early-life influences, beginning with the intrauterine environment and continuing through the first few years of life shape the likelihood of weight gain and body fatness throughout the life course.
18. Low vitamin D intake while in the womb and during infancy can increase risk of osteoporosis later in life.
19. Your growing baby will feed their brain first, so poor nutrition will mean other organs won’t be built as well, so they won’t work as well.
20. Better early nutrition means improved ability to form memories, better attention span, better ability to process information, and better locomotor skills.