AS RAMADAN begins this week, pregnant women deciding whether to take part in the customary fast may wish to consider the effect on their babies.
So says at the University of Manchester, UK, and colleagues at King Saud University in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. They analysed records of 7000 babies born in a Saudi hospital over a four-year period, and worked out during which trimester, if any, of their mother鈥檚 pregnancy Ramadan fell. Surveys indicate that over 90 per cent of pregnant Muslim women fast.
While babies鈥� birth weights were similar in fasting and non-fasting Saudi women, the placentas of women who had fasted during the second or third trimester were 3 per cent lighter than average when the child was a boy and 1.5 per cent lighter for girls (Placenta, ).
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Children born with placentas that are smaller than average are known to have an increased risk of cardiovascular disease later in life, though it is too early to advise pregnant women whether to fast, Ashton says. 鈥淏irth weight isn鈥檛 affected, which is good, but we need to see whether a small placenta affects the risk of cardiovascular disease in these children in the long term.鈥�
In the original version of this story, we provided an incorrect affiliation for Nick Ashton. He is in fact based at the University of Manchester, UK.
