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Chocolate May Help Curb Preeclampsia During Pregnancy

When you're pregnant, you have to contend with 9 months' worth of do's and don'ts. But a new study may offer some welcome news about one guilty pleasure that moms-to-be might not have to feel guilty about -- indulging in an occasional chocolate.

Considering that a slew of studies in recent years have heralded the potential health benefits of the mouth-watering confection, researchers aimed to find out if chocolate can help pregnant women fend off the high-risk condition preeclampsia (which develops in late pregnancy and is characterized by a sudden rise in blood pressure and excessive weight gain, with fluid retention and protein in the urine).

So, they surveyed more than 2,200 new moms about how much chocolate they'd consumed during their first and third trimesters. They also checked their babies' umbilical cord blood for the amount of the chemical theobromine, found in chocolate.
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