U.S. National Institutes of Health
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July 8, 1954

A Johnson Publication

15c

Jet

Circulation Over 400

Can mothers influence unborn children?

Crazy hair styles for women

Cora Mae Richey: Chicago model sports close-cropped Italian haircut

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Medics Say Smoking Won't Cause a Yellow Baby

Similar maladies pop up in the unborn children of babies of mothers who neglect diet control, according to New York pediatrician, Dr. Bret Ratner. Contradicting the popular belief that an expectant mother should satisfy her food cravings to keep her child from being marked. Dr. Ratner says excessive eating of protein-rich foods can cause a protein allergy in the baby.

One Los Angeles mother consulted a doctor about her 13-month-old daughter who suffered with severe face and body eczema. His tests revealed the baby was especially sensitive to egg white. Questioning the mother, the doctor learned she drank seven or eight raw eggs a day mixed in eggnog during her pregnancy. When he removed the eggs from the child's diet, the skin cleared up.

Besides wrong diet, scientists say smoking and illnesses during a mother's pregnancy can affect her child. Although smoking will not cause a yellow baby, as is commonly believed, it does produce a changed heart rate and may damage his entire heart and circulatory system.

An illness like diabetes can make the baby 10 pounds overweight at birth, mainly because it deprives the afflicted mother of certain hormones needed for her child's womb development. German measles can affect its eyes and often its heart and brain, but will not cause the deformed children some over-imaginative mothers fear will be born.

Most doctors, urging expectant mothers to avoid crowds, places and children from whom she might pick up infections, tell them to be especially careful during the second month of pregnancy. Doctors say that if pregnant mothers guard their health, watch their diet and avoid mental strains, they can expect to have healthy, mentally-alert babies.

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