A new study has demonstrated that children's future health is influenced by health of their parents i.e. if a child is born to unhealthy parents then he will already have a greater risk of poor health.
The study conducted by University of Adelaide explained that parental influences on a child begin before conception, because stored environmental factors in the egg and sperm were contributing more than just genetic material to the child.
Professor Sarah Robertson, author and Director of the University's Robinson Research Institute, said that people used to think that it didn't matter, because a child represented a new beginning, with a fresh start but the reality was that they could now say with great certainty that the child did not quite start from scratch and they already carried over a legacy of factors from their parents' experiences that could shape development in the fetus and after birth.
She added that a few lifestyle changes by potential parents and improvements in the right direction, especially in the months leading up to conception, could have a lasting, positive benefit for the future of their child.
Robertson said that many things they did in the lead up to conceiving was having an impact on the future development of the child i.e. from the age of the parents, to poor diet, obesity, smoking and many other factors, all of which influenced environmental signals transmitted into the embryo.