Chocolate is good for the baby

Scientists at the University of Helsinki who asked 300 pregnant women to record their chocolate consumption and stress levels found that daily treats had a positive impact on the newborn baby's behavior. Six months after the infants were born, the mothers who had eaten chocolate reported more smiling and laughter in their offspring. "And the babies of stressed women who had regularly consumed chocolate showed less fear of new situations than babies of stressed women who had abstained,"according to a report in last week's New Scientist magazine. Katri Raikkanen and colleagues who conducted the research acknowledged they can't be certain that chocolate consumption and the babies' behavior are not linked with other factors. "But they speculate that the effects they observed could result from chemicals in chocolate associated with a positive mood being passed on to the baby in the womb," the magazine stated.
REUTERS