They say “you are what you eat” and recent research reveals that so is your baby. In fact, the foods that you eat during pregnancy not only reach the baby through your interconnected bloodstream, but they also change the flavor of the amniotic fluid that your baby swallows. New findings of how babies develop a sense of taste in the womb provide pregnant women with more motivation to eat healthy foods.

Scientists have discovered that the foods pregnant women consume can be detected in samples of their amniotic fluid. All the pregnant women who participated in a recent study were 21 weeks along. Researchers believe the baby’s tastes are being programmed for life during this time. Testers smelled amniotic fluid samples and were able to detect anise, mint, garlic, carrot, and vanilla after the pregnant women consumed these foods. Taste is 90 percent smell so it’s assumed that babies taste the foods in the fluid as well. Babies reacted favorably to the foods that they were exposed to in the womb when researchers completed further testing. For example, one group of pregnant women was advised to drink a glass of carrot juice every day. Their babies were later given two types of cereal – one contained carrots. The babies favored the carrot-laden cereal; they ate more and made less negative faces while consuming it.

If one of your children is out-of-control and the other is almost completely self-sufficient, you might find that changing your parenting approach for each child will yield better results. A new study challenges the way kids with different personalities are guided through childhood and suggests that parenting should match a child’s personality.

Over 200 moms in Seattle took part in a study that lasted three years, in which researchers observed their parenting. The researchers measured levels of anxiety and depression in children each time they visited the families and made note of each child’s personality and each mother’s parenting style. They essentially split the parenting styles into two types: laissez faire or authoritarian. The children were observed for their level of self-control in addition to their general emotional state. Researchers found that when parents matched their parenting style to the child’s individual personality, the children had lower levels of anxiety and depression.