29 Oct 2013 - FAB EVENT - Feeding Healthy Minds - Maternal and Infant Nutrition and Children's Brain Development

This event has now taken place. 

Programme and Abstracts:

A document with the programme, speaker details and abstracts, summarising the content of the day's presentations may be downloaded at the link below.

About the event:

FAB Research hosted this opportunity to hear from some of the world’s leading experts on the role of nutrition in brain development and function, and its importance for mothers and infants.

Delegates heard the latest evidence on how the diets that mothers eat before and during pregnancy can have a lifelong impact on their children's health and development - and discovered what kinds of diets are likely to promote the best, and the worst, outcomes.

The programme for the day was designed for a multi-disciplinary audience of professionals, policy makers, researchers from academia and industry, and others concerned with the health, education and welfare of mothers, babies and young children.  It gave all participants the chance to hear about and discuss the latest evidence and insights into the modern maternal diet and its lasting legacy.

What was discussed:

• Is it true that pregnant mothers whose diets are high in fat and sugar will have already programmed their babies to crave high fat, high sugar foods by the time they are weaned?
• What are the likely consequences for their children's behavioural and cognitive development if mothers consume a typical modern, western-type diet during pregnancy? 
• Which nutrients and dietary fats are particularly important in early life, and why?
• Which ones are lacking from many mothers' and infants' diets - and what are the likely consequences for both the mothers' mental health and their children's future cognitive development and wellbeing?
• What are the best ways to ensure an adequate intake, for mothers and for young infants?
• Improving mothers' and children's food choices  – what can be done, and who should be doing it?

This event provided opportunities not only to learn from the latest research findings, but also to ask questions and get answers that may influence some of the decisions made every day.