When I was pregnant with my first daughter in 2006, for some reason, I heard about this 2003 study where some doctors found that women who eat chocolate daily during pregnancy have happier babies. What?
So, I was definitely interested. I was already eating chocolate daily. What pregnant woman doesn’t? OK, so maybe there are some pregnant women who don’t, but I definitely wasn’t one of them. And, the funny thing is, I wasn’t that big of a chocoholic before pregnancy. But, once those hormones kicked in, I was hooked.
And, the other funny thing? I did have a pretty happy baby. My first was such a delight. She was sweet, slept good, nursed good, smiled a lot, and didn’t cry a lot. Maybe there is something to this study after all. I know it’s an old study, but who cares? I’m sure there are pregnant women around the world who will rejoice by being reminded of this study.
You can download the PDF file of the study here. If you’re into reading studies.
They had 305 women that participated in the study. They grouped them into never/seldom consumers, weekly, and daily. What did they find? That the daily consumers of chocolate had happier babies at 6 months old. They rated happiness by more “positively reactive and active”. They argued that it could be that the mothers who were eating chocolate everyday had a more positive sense of well-being. Thus, they passed those happy feelings onto their babies in the womb. A weakness in their study could have been that the mothers who ate chocolate daily were also more interactive with their children during the first 6 months.
Whatever the findings, I like it! So, the moral of the story ladies is that a little chocolate everyday during your pregnancy surely can’t hurt. So, enjoy yourselves!!
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Reference: K. Ra¨ikko¨nen et al. / Early Human Development 76 (2004) 139–145