The answer is yes, especially if you’re aware of how your pregnancy diet affects baby’s future tastes. Here’s what you can do

By Kate Geagan, M.S., R.D.

“Mommy, more please.”

Those magic words play like music to a mother’s ears, especially if the dish in question is something that qualifies as “healthy.” And although this scenario might seem far off while you’re still stuck in what could be The World’s Largest Pants, it appears that a budding eater’s “food road map” actually begins to develop while she’s still floating in that bag of waters.

That’s right—a growing body of evidence suggests your own personal cuisine routine influences your baby long before his first actual taste of solid food. All sorts of flavors from your diet are transmitted through amniotic fluid, and later via breast milk, to your little one, helping shape the trajectory of his palate even before he’s actually eaten any foods for himself. A study in Pediatrics, for example, found that infants whose mothers drank carrot juice during pregnancy or nursing reacted more positively to carrots than those whose mothers had abstained. Other studies from around the world have found similar results: In France, babies of mothers who consumed anise-flavored beverages more readily accepted the taste than babies of mothers who skipped such drinks, and research in Ireland found similar results with garlic.

Far from a reason to panic—“Oh great, one more thing I’m not doing right!”—consider these findings as yet another testament to the deep power of your own diet during this critical time. It’s OK if you don’t love every single veggie under the sun, but do stretch yourself. Try to shop different parts of the produce section each week.