Observations on maternal dietary fat intake and fetal pulmonary maturation in rats.

Pregnant rats were maintained on one of the following dietary regimes: (1) low fat through gestation; (2) low fat to gestational age 15, then high fat until term; or (3) high fat throughout gestation. Fetal pulmonary maturation (as measured by the lung content of acetone-precipitable lecithin) was accelerated in rats on the high-fat diet, was intermediate in the group on low fat later switched to high fat and was retarded in rats on the low-fat diet. We feel that these data, as well as previous reports from our laboratory, justify additional experiments on human subjects.