Expectant women have been told what to avoid for centuries. Now epigenetics is on their case, too, says Kat Arney
“It is certainly as true as the gospel that when a man sleeps with his wife or his mistress with dirty and smelly feet, if he fathers a boy, the child will have smelly and unpleasant breath. If he fathers a girl, she will have a stinky rear end.”
The source of this dubious wisdom is the Distaff Gospels – a cornucopia of medieval old wives’ tales. Expectant mums were advised to avoid eating hares’ heads in case they caused a harelip, skip soft cheese lest their sons be born with small penises, and shun fish heads for fear of giving their child a trout pout – as well as the perhaps more reasonable advice to avoid shagging a man with filthy feet.
Our cells ‘write’ epigenetic changes into our DNA, a bit like sticking Post-it notes into a recipe book
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