The Influence of Prenatal Diet on the Mother and Child

Dietary "Fibre" and Pregnancy Toxaemia

“…For example, Ebbs, Tisdall, and Scott (1941) found that toxaemia and the incidence of stillbirth and neonatal deaths are more common in women with "poor" diets than in those with " good " diets or in those with poor diets supplemented throughout pregnancy with oranges, tomato pulp, wheat germ, milk, and vitamin D. How are these findings to be reconciled with the observation that toxaemia is very rare in some native populations living on so-called poor diets, and also with the findings that *The term "fibre" as used in this paper includes lignin, cellulose, and the hemicelluloses. tSome of this work was carried out during the tenure of a World Health Organization Fellowship in 1952, but the statements made and the opinions expressed are not necessarily those of the Organization.…”

“…These foods, in addition to being rich in minerals and vitamins, also contain fibre. Ebbs, Tisdall, and Scott (1941) demonstrated that good diets and poor diets, supplemented with a number of fruits and vegetables (see above), apparently had a beneficial effect on the incidence of toxaemia. These diets undoubtedly had a higher fibre content than the poor diets.…”

The Influence of Diet on Pregnancy and Lactation in the Mother, the Growth and Viability of the Foetus, and Post-Natal Development. Part 1. Pregnancy

“…As Ballantync (1941) and others have shown, the primary ocular disturbance is a retrobulbar neuritis with dimness of vision but with no visible change in the fundi, followed by a central scotoma with some oedema of the discs and, later still, by retinal haemorrhages, papilloedema and complete loss of vision, without exudates or vascular sclerosis. Ballantyne was inclined to favour the therapeutic use of vitamins B, and C for this retrobulbar neuritis, but there is increasing evidence (Moore, 1939;Landor and Pallister, 1935;Wilkinson and King, 1941;Grande and Peraita, 1941) that, in non-pregnant persons, retrobulbar neuritis is caused by deficiency of a member of the vitamin B, complex, perhaps riboflavin. Wernicke's encephalopathy has been stated to respond dramatically to treatment with vitamin B,, but there is some evidence that nicotinic acid, with or without vitamin B,, produces better results.…”

Cystic fibrosis of the pancreas

“…However, figures from the Ontario Government on employment have been considered and this bears no constant relation to the incidence of this disease. Ebbs (1941), in a survey of the diets of pregnant women found that deficient diets were common during 1938-39 and up to the fall of 1940, when rather suddenly the deficient diet almost ceased to exist among the pregnant women in the clinic. It will be interesting to see if the incidence of this disease falls off.…”

“…The diagnosis has been made, with a query in a few ante mortem, but in one of these no changes were found in the pancreas and the lung showed the usual type of bronchopneumonia seen in infants. May andMcCreary (1940, 1941) using the barium sulphate meal, glucose tolerance test, stool fats estimation and vitamin A absorption test state that none of these tests were specific for the diagnosis of coeliac disease in differentiating it from other conditions (including cystic fibrosis of pancreas) which produce coeliac-like symptoms. Andersen states that this condition can be differentiated from coeliac disease by aspiration of duodenal contents and analysing for trypsin, lipase and amylase.…”