AS RAMADAN begins this week, pregnant women deciding whether to take part in the customary fast may wish to consider the effect on their babies.
So says Nick Ashton at the University of Manchester, UK, and colleagues at King Saud University in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. They analysed records of 7000 babies born in a Saudi hospital over a four-year period, and worked out during which trimester, if any, of their mother’s pregnancy Ramadan fell. Surveys indicate that over 90 per cent of pregnant Muslim women fast.
While babies’ birth weights were similar in fasting and non-fasting Saudi women, the placentas of women who had fasted during…
