Health Check Ep 56: How a mother's well-being can have a large impact on her baby

27:39 mins

Synopsis: This is a fortnightly podcast series on Wednesdays by The Straits Times that aims to help you make sense of health matters that affect you.

In early March 2021, the Ministry of Health announced during the debate on its budget, that it has set up a task force to oversee the development and implementation of a five-year action plan to provide comprehensive support to women and their children, as part of its larger efforts to improve the population's health.

In this episode, ST senior health correspondent Joyce Teo hosts Professor Chong Yap Seng, the dean of the National University of Singapore’s Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine and the executive director of the Singapore Institute for Clinical Sciences at the Agency for Science, Technology and Research.

They discuss what more can be done to improve maternal and child health.

Prof Chong is also an obstetrician and the lead principal investigator of the Growing Up In Singapore Towards Healthy Outcomes or Gusto study, which started in 2009 to study how conditions in pregnancy and early childhood influence the health and development of women and their children here.

Its findings show that a mother's health can directly impact her child's development.

Critical interventions to ensure better well-being of Singaporean mothers (2:27)
Using latest scientific tests for more precise studies of Singaporean babies, from as early as the first week of life in the "Gusto" study (7:36)
If mothers have depression symptoms during pregnancy, how it can be scientifically shown that their children would have a higher chance of developing mood anxiety disorders (11:40)
What can such parents do to nurture corrective methods after their children are born (14:46)
An obstetrician's tips for women planning pregnancy (18:50)