Best scientific discovery ever: Pregnant women can benefit from eating a little bit of chocolate every day. Seriously, what could be better? There are already so many things doctors recommend pregnant women don’t do, like eat sushi, drink coffee, or partake in a delicious pastrami sandwich. So it’s a true miracle that a recent study has proven eating chocolate is beneficial for pregnant ladies. Oh, yes.
Calling all pregnant ladies
So, what does this exactly mean?
The Society for Maternal-Fetal Medicine just released the results of a study in which 30 grams of chocolate was consumed daily for 12 weeks by pregnant participants, who were subsequently tracked until delivery. Just to give you some reference, an entire Hershey’s bar is 41 grams, so it’s not A LOT of chocolate (sorry, ladies…). And the study’s focus was to determine how high-flavanol chocolate affects pregnant women, which is the dark, bitter kind, not the milky one. But still, it’s CHOCOLATE!
What we do when there’s chocolate in the office
So, the magical result they found: Chocolate has a positive effect on placenta and fetal growth and development by improving blood flow. Even low-flavanol chocolate (AKA: milk chocolate) proved beneficial. That means you can eat your delicious milk chocolate Godiva bar too. According to the study, the positive effects are undeniable:
RECIPE: Chocolate Chunk Lactation Cookies
“There was no difference in preeclampsia, gestational hypertension, placental weight or birthweight in the two groups. However, the uterine artery Doppler pulsatility index (a surrogate marker of blood velocity in the uterine, placental and fetal circulations) in both groups showed marked improvement that was much greater than expected in general population.”
Chocolate AND ice cream???
Of course, this is not to say that this one study should completely change what women do during their pregnancies. More research is definitely necessary in order to determine how much chocolate is actually beneficial, as well as other factors that may arise.
And let me just say: I’m not pregnant, but I definitely do eat a daily dose of chocolate. (If only you could see my freezer…I buy chocolate bars in bulk just to make sure my stash isn’t low. Yep, I know, it’s probably a problem.)
But hey, if you’re pregnant, it may be time to stock up on your chocolate stash, too. You know, for the kids.
