Never does a human being go through such a rapid development like the one in the first thousand days after conception. Many studies have shown that there are several risk factors that can cause negative consequences. This includes the research of Tessa Roseboom, APH researcher and professor of Early Development and Health at Amsterdam UMC.

25 years ago, Tessa Roseboom started a study on the effects of the extreme hunger that prevailed in the Netherlands during the Hunger Winter in World War II. With birth records of the babies that were born back then, Roseboom was able to investigate the influences of the extreme situations.

“The study shows that people who were conceived during the Hunger Winter, and were in the womb at the very beginning of pregnancy, are twice as likely to have cardiovascular diseases sixty years later.”, Roseboom says. “They are more likely to have impaired blood clotting, higher cholesterol or higher blood sugar levels, and worse memory and a 5 percent smaller brain than people born before or well after the Hunger Winter.”

Roseboom and other researchers share more insights from their studies on the first few years a persons life. Read the full article (in Dutch) in het NRC.