JMIR Publications

ABSTRACT

Background:

Early experience with different flavors play an important role including food and taste acceptance. Flavors are already perceived in utero with the development of the taste and olfactory system and are passed on to the child through breast and bottle feeding. Therefore, first 1000 days of life are considered to be a critical window for infant developmental programming.

Objective:

The objective of our study is to investigate, both in the prenatal and postnatal period, taste sensitivity, preferences, and dietary diversity of mother infant-pairs. The explorative study design will also report on the impact of these variables on body composition and biomarkers. In contrast to conventional methods, the study involves long term follow up data collection from mother-infant pairs as well as the integration of audiovisual tools for recording infants' expressions on taste stimuli is a novelty in this study. Taking this new methodological approaches into consideration the study is aiming to assess taste-related data in conjunction with body composition (fat-free mass or fat mass), biomarkers, and nutritional intake in infants and children.

Methods:

Healthy pregnant women aged between 18 and 50 years (Body Mass Index ≥18.5 kg/m2 to ≤30.0 kg/m2; < 28 weeks of gestation) were recruited for this pilot study. The explorative design implies two center visits during pregnancy (T1: 24-28 weeks’ gestation; T2: 32-34 weeks’ gestation) and two center visits after delivery (T3: 6-8 weeks postpartum, T4: 14-16 weeks postpartum) as well as follow up visits with 1, 3 and 6 years after delivery. Data collection methods encompasses anthropometric and biochemical measurements as well as body composition analyses with air displacement plethysmography, taste perception assessments and multicomponent questionnaires on demographics, feeding practices, nutritional and lifestyle behavior. Audiovisual data from infants’ reactions to sensory stimuli are collected and coded by trained staff using Baby Facial Action Coding and Body Action Posture System. Birth outcomes, and weight development are obtained from medical records, additionally qualitative data are gathered from 24 semi-structured interviews.

Results:

Our cohort represents a homogenous group of healthy women with stringent exclusion criteria. A total of 54 women met eligible criteria, while 47 mother-child pairs completed data collection at four center visits during and after pregnancy. Follow up data collection and data analyses are still ongoing. The study was approved by the ethics committee of the Medical University of Graz (EC No 26–066 ex 13/14), and all participants gave informed consent.

Conclusions:

The results of this study could be useful in the elucidation of connections between maternal and infants’ status regarding taste, diet, biomarkers, and weight development pre- and postnatal. This study may also be relevant to the establishment of further diagnostic and interventional strategies targeting childhood obesity and early body fat development.