Innate food aversions and culturally transmitted food taboos in pregnant women in rural southwest India: separate systems to protect the fetus?

ABSTRACT: Pregnancy increases women's nutritional requirements, yet causes aversions to nutritious foods. Most societies further restrict pregnant women's diet with food taboos. Pregnancy food aversions are theorized to protect mothers and fetuses from teratogens and pathogens or increase dietary diversity in response to resource scarcity. Tests of these hypotheses have had mixed results, perhaps because many studies are in Westernized populations with reliable access to food and low exposure to pathogens. If pregnancy food aversions are adaptations, however, then they likely evolved in environments with uncertain access to food and high exposure to pathogens. Pregnancy food taboos, on the other hand, have been theorized to limit resource consumption, mark social identity, or also protect mothers an

SUBMITTER: Placek CD 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5764174 | biostudies-literature | 2017 Nov

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature