Unborn children make faces when mother eats kale

Children usually only have an appetite for vegetables if they eat fries afterwards. As soon as something green lands on the board, many children make a face – it looks something like this:

But it’s not just children who turn up their noses at green food, unborn babies react to vegetables. Unborn children grimace when exposed to kale in the womb, according to a new study from Durham University in England. It doesn’t look much different from small children:

The taste of carrots, on the other hand, would make the unborn smile.

To find out how the unborn child reacts to vegetables eaten by the mother, a research team from the British University of Durham studied nearly 70 pregnant women between the ages of 18 and 40. After eating vegetable capsules, the researchers recorded the reactions using ultrasound examinations.

The women were divided into two groups. One group was asked to take a capsule of kale powder, the other group was given capsules of carrot powder. An hour before the research project, the subjects were not allowed to eat any other food. After 20 minutes, the research team examined the fetuses. The fetuses of those women who had ingested carrot powder seemed to respond to the orange vegetable with a happy face. The unborn babies of the women given kale capsules did not appear visibly pleased.

The study, published in the journal Psychological Science, is a milestone for the research team. “A number of studies have shown that babies can taste and smell in the womb, but they are based on results after birth, while our study is the first to observe these reactions before birth,” said study author Beyza Ustun. She and her team now want to discover other flavors.

Nadja Reissland, co-author of the study, says we know from other research that children are much less picky eaters if the mother eats a varied diet during pregnancy. Kale should therefore continue to be integrated into the diet.

After all, they learn the spectacle of green resistance at an early age.

(cst)