Shock as Doctor Reveals How Diet in Pregnancy Could Affect Future Grandkids

A video of a doctor explaining how a pregnant woman’s behavior and environment can impact her future grandchildren has gone viral on TikTok.

The clip was posted by Dr. Karan Raj (@dr.karanr), who is a general surgeon for the National Health Service (NHS) in the U.K. The footage has received over 590,000 views in less than a day.

Raj says in the video: “Fun fact: A part of you started life inside your grandmother.” As the clip shows sonogram footage of a fetus, the NHS surgeon adds: “When a woman is pregnant with a female fetus, that fetus will develop all the eggs it will ever have.

“One of those eggs ultimately contributed to developing you. So, every woman pregnant with a girl is potentially carrying part of their grandchildren, too—a biological Russian doll,” Raj says.

The doctor later adds that stress, dietary factors and other elements can have transgenerational impacts.

He says: “We still don’t all have the answers, but we are increasingly aware that epigenetics—how one’s environment can influence behavior and development—is probably equally important to genetics in every biological system.”

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) says that genes play an important role in our health, but so do our environment and behaviors, which can cause changes that affect the way our genes work.

The CDC adds: “Since your environment and behaviors, such as diet and exercise, can result in epigenetic changes, it is easy to see the connection between your genes and your behaviors and environment.

“A pregnant woman’s environment and behavior during pregnancy, such as whether she eats healthy food, can change the baby’s epigenetics. Some of these changes can remain for decades and might make the child more likely to get certain diseases,” the federal health body says.

Research has shown how stress and other factors can impact a fetus and the child’s health.

A November 2022 study published in BMC Medicine stated: “The maternal environment, encompassing genetic factors, impacts of social determinants, the nutritional/metabolic milieu, and infections and inflammation, have immediate consequences for the in utero development of the fetus and long-term programming into childhood and adulthood.”

A November 2020 study published in Psychoneuroendocrinology said that prenatal exposure to stress raises the risk for “suboptimal child and adult mental and physical health outcomes.”

A message overlaid on the latest viral video reads: “Women are born with all the eggs they will ever need in their life. which means you’re basically carrying your future child with you, which means that your future child is always with you at all times, and they’re just waiting for their moment to experience the world.”

Raj, who is also a senior clinical lecturer at the University of Sunderland Medical School, northeastern England, says in the latest clip that, while “this womb-ception is fascinating, this next bit is trippy.”

Raj adds that this also means “the prenatal exposure—the environment a pregnant woman is exposed to—has the potential to impact three generations.”

This includes the mother, the fetus and if the fetus is a girl, all her immature egg cells, “any of which may one day become the third generation—the grandchildren.”

As the video shows the profile of the inside of pregnant woman’s womb, Raj says: “The woman’s great-grandchildren will be the first generation not directly affected by the original exposure. It’s wild to think that stress, dietary factors and exposure to toxins and other environmental factors can have these transgenerational impacts.”

Several TikTok users were amazed by the doctor’s explanation in the latest viral clip.

Bookishgirl001 wrote: “The freakiest thing is if you are pregnant with a girl you are not only carrying your child but ur grandchildren too.”

Caroline posted: “That’s just wild. So my grandmother’s experience/environment in 1918 when she was carrying my mother has an impact on me who was born 42 years later.” The original poster replied: “Transgenerational impact.”

Fliss commented: “That’s why the generational trauma is too much, MY GRANDMA BRO.”

User kinglafayette4 wrote: “my grandma was born before the war, no wonder I am scared of basically everything.”

User 44 posted: “Never wanted to take care of myself more than ever.”

Newsweek has contacted the original poster for comment via TikTok. This video has not been independently verified.

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