HEALTH NEWS

Study Title:

Deficient maternal zinc intake-but not folate-is associated with lower fetal heart rate variability.

Study Abstract

Objective: Few studies of maternal prenatal diet and child development examine micronutrient status in relation to fetal assessment.

Methods: Twenty-four-hour dietary recall of zinc and folate and 20min of fetal heart rate were collected from 3rd trimester pregnant adolescents.

Results: Deficient zinc was associated with less fetal heart rate variability. Deficient folate had no associations with HRV. Neither deficient zinc nor deficient folate was related to fetal heart rate.

Conclusions: These findings, from naturalistic observation, are consistent with emerging data on prenatal zinc supplementation using a randomized control design.

Practical implication: Taken together, the findings suggest that maternal prenatal zinc intake is an important and novel factor for understanding child ANS development.

Study Information

Early Hum Dev. 2015 Mar;91(3):169-72. doi: 10.1016/j.earlhumdev.2015.01.007. Epub 2015 Feb 3. PMID: 25658874; PMCID: PMC4471999.

Full Study

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/25658874/