Traditionally, fish was singled out as one of the foods that pregnant women should never consider eating, due to mercury exposure potentially causing developmental problems in children.
Traditionally, fish was singled out as one of the foods that pregnant women should never consider eating, due to mercury exposure potentially causing developmental problems in children. But a fresh new study has debunked that, saying that the advantages of eating fish during pregnancy may outweigh the disadvantages when it comes to a child’s developmental process.
The Food and Drug Administration’s current guidelines state that pregnant women shouldn’t eat fish more than twice in a week. As a lot of mercury found in the environment spreads to the oceans, that makes it impossible for fish not to ingest even a small amount of it. Still, there has been no conclusive study successfully linking childhood developmental issues to a mother’s fish consumption, and this new joint study posits that fish may do more good than harm in the grander scheme of things.
The multinational study involved researchers from New York’s University of Rochester Medical Center, Belfast’s Ulster University, and the Republic of Seychelles Ministry of Health and Ministry of Education. It was a long and comprehensive study that was recently published on the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, involving over 1,500 mothers and children. The children were studied from their 20th month into adulthood, while the scientists collected hair samples from their mothers to analyze for levels of prenatal mercury exposure.
As it turned out, the researchers discovered that there was no association between a mother’s fish consumption while pregnant and lower test scores or other learning problems; further, there was also no connection between prenatal mercury exposure and said learning issues. Children of mothers who had higher omega-3 fatty acid levels had generally performed better on tests, which proved that omega-3 could potentially counteract the negative effects of mercury.
“It appears that the relationship between fish nutrients and mercury may be far more complex than previously appreciated,” concluded lead researcher Dr. Philip Davidson of the University of Rochester. “These findings indicate that there may be an optimal balance between the different inflammatory properties of fatty acids that promote fetal development and that these mechanisms warrant further study.”