Pregnant? Eating a fry-up could have an unexpected benefit

Happy days - if you're pregnant, you could have a very good excuse to tuck into a full Irish.

New research suggests that expectant mums who eat foods commonly found in a cooked breakfast could give birth to more intelligent babies. The key to the intelligence boost could lie in choline, a nutrient that is plentiful in eggs yolks and bacon. In a study of 26 infants, those whose mothers had ingested the most choline during the later stages of pregnancy were likely to better in IQ tests than others. There was a marked effect on the speed at which the infants processed information in the children whose mums had had the most choline. The same effect has previously been shown in tests using mice. "In animal models using rodents, there is widespread agreement supplementing the maternal diet with additional amounts of this single nutrient has lifelong benefits on offspring cognitive function," said Marie Caudill of New York's Cornell University, professor of nutritional sciences and the study's first author. "Our study provides some evidence that a similar result is found in humans." If eggs and rashers aren't your thing, there are other places you can get your fill of choline and potentially boost your baby's brain power. It's also commonly found in red meat, poultry, fish, dairy foods, peanuts, spinach, beetroot and broccoli.