Protein and Pregnancy

Abstract

From the 1950s to the 1970s, during the heyday of the “great protein fiasco,” public health officials, concerned about health and nutrition in America’s urban ghettos, routinely recommended high-protein supplements, sometimes together with restricted calorie intakes, for undernourished pregnant women in order to improve birth outcome (i.e., birth weight, perinatal mortality and morbidity, and cognitive development). Such programs went on for years with few systematic attempts to evaluate their effectiveness or consequences.