Nutritional Management during Gestation: Impacts on Lifelong Performance

Effective nutritional management during gestation has long been recognized as an important component of sound livestock production practices (Bull and Carroll, 1937; Barcroft, 1946; Morrison, 1949; Maynard and Loosli, 1956; Crampton and Lloyd, 1959; NRC, 1970). Recent observation in the area of developmental programming (Barker et al., 1992; Barker et al., 1993; Godfrey and Barker, 2000; Barker, 2004) has elevated the concept of maternal onset of adult disease and lifelong performance to the forefront of investigation in several national and international laboratories. In addition, the 2007 Aspen Perinatal Biology Symposium http://www.med.uc.edu/obgyn/aspen/index.html and the 2007 5th International Congress on Developmental Origins of Health & Disease, which is sponsored by the International Society for Developmental Origins of Health and Disease http://www.congresswest.com.au/dohad/index.html both focus on developmental programming and have major sections that highlight relevance in animal agricultural. Clearly, research in these directions with livestock species (and other animal models) has and will likely continue to produce relevant data for both livestock and biomedical interests. In this report, several aspects of existing data with livestock species are reviewed and potentially relevant aspects to both livestock management and biomedicine are highlighted. The importance of nutritional management during gestation in regards to fetal programming, livestock production, and human health are addressed. Impacts of nutritional management during gestation on outcomes during the peri-conceptional period, fetal growth and development, birth to weaning, and weaning to adulthood are also discussed.