Pregnancy and fetal environment can have a profound influence on many chronic diseases, such as diabetes, children's and mother's obesity, breast cancer, and cardiovascular diseases. Much of the influence of the intrauterine milieu is likely to be transmitted to adulthood, and perhaps to next generations, through epigenetic mechanisms. However, the exact mechanistic pathways, especially associations between epigenetic modifications and lifestyle during pregnancy, are largely unknown and deserve further study.

Emerging evidence suggests that lifestyle modifications during or after pregnancy, even in later adulthood, may be valuable tools in chronic disease prevention among mothers and their children. Studies on the prevention of excessive weight gain during pregnancy by lifestyle modifications have gained favourable results on mother's body weight, and structured aerobic exercise training has been shown to prevent high birth weight of the newborn, whereas effects of dietary interventions are less clear. High intake of saturated fat, low intake of polyunsaturated fat, excessive gestational weight gain, and low physical activity may increase the risk of gestational diabetes mellitus. Preclinical studies show that high fat diet during pregnancy increases breast cancer risk among dams and female offspring. We invite authors to submit original research as well as review articles. Potential topics include, but are not limited to:

• Nutrition to promote healthy pregnancy
• Pregnancy and nutrition: clinical studies on efficacy on various endpoints, such as preventing excessive weight gain during pregnancy, gestational diabetes, premature birth, and high and low birth weight
• Pregnancy and nutrition: mechanisms mediating the effects of components in foods on mothers and offspring in multiple generations
• Pregnancy-induced genetic changes
• Pregnancy and exercise: observational studies and trials
• Pregnancy and exercise: mechanistic studies
• Pregnancy and lifestyle modification/intervention: effects and methodology
• Effects of endocrine disrupting chemicals during pregnancy on offspring's health

Before submission authors should carefully read over the journal's Author Guidelines, which are located at http://www.hindawi.com/journals/jp/guidelines/. Prospective authors should submit an electronic copy of their complete manuscript through the journal Manuscript Tracking System at http://mts.hindawi.com/ according to the following timetable: