Effects of Food Preferences and Supplement Intake During Pregnancy on the Cleft Lip and Palate Incidence: The Japan Environment and Children’s Study

TL;DR

This study found that avoiding multiple specific foods during pregnancy may increase the risk of cleft lip and palate in children.

Contribution

The study identifies a link between avoiding multiple specific food items during pregnancy and increased risk of non-syndromic cleft lip and palate.

Findings

Avoiding two or more of five specific food items during pregnancy significantly increases the risk of NSCLP (aOR 2.86).

Avoiding only one food item was not associated with increased NSCLP risk.

Nutritional support when multiple foods are avoided may help reduce NSCLP occurrence.

Abstract

Background: Cleft lip and/or palate (CL/P) is a high-frequency congenital disease. Besides genetic background, maternal environmental factors may be involved in its incidence. We examined the effects of unbalanced diets and the intake of dietary supplements during pregnancy on the incidence of non-syndromic CL/P (NSCLP) via a case–control study design with multiple case groups. The case group diagnosed with NSCLP included 281 patients, 217 from the Japan Environment and Children’s Study (JECS) data and 64 from the Aichi Gakuin University Hospital from 2011 to 2014. The control group comprised 87,477 (excluding cases with multiple births, chromosomal abnormalities, or complications) of the 104,062 fetal records registered in JECS. Results: The results revealed a significantly increased risk of NSCLP (aOR 2.86, 95% CI 1.63–5.00) in mothers who avoided two or more food items out of the investigated five, i.e., milk and dairy products, eggs, soy, fish, and beef. No association was identified in mothers who avoided one food. Conclusions: Providing nutritional support when multiple foods are avoided in daily food habits may be effective in reducing the occurrence of NSCLP.

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