Good news for to-be-moms! Eating chocolate can protect your unborn baby, for a study has found that it helps prevent pregnancy-induced hypertension known as pre-eclampsia. A team of researchers at Yale University has found that pregnant women who eat chocolate at least five times a week are 40 per cent less likely to develop pre-eclampsia than those who consume it less than once a week. Pre-eclampsia leads to blood vessels in the placenta failing to develop. This can drive up a woman's blood pressure and reduce the transfer of oxygen and nutrients to the foetus.As a result, babies are often born prematurely and many die. According to them, the chemical theobromine - which occurs naturally in chocolate, particularly in dark varieties - could be responsible for the protection, British newspaper the Daily Mail reported on Tuesday.
In their study, the researchers looked at 2,291 pregnant women and tested the levels of theobromine in their infants' umbilical-cord blood. The study found that those women who consumed the most chocolate and those whose babies had the highest concentration of theobromine, were the less likely to develop pre-eclampsia than who did not have chocolate. However, lead researcher Dr Elizabeth W Triche said, ''Because of the importance of pre-eclampsia as a major complication of pregnancy, a detailed assessment of chocolate consumption is warranted.''
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