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When pregnant mom eats fish, kids do better: study

2007-06-06 10:52:40

By Will Dunham Thu Feb 15 2007, 9:41 PM ET

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Children of mothers who ate more fish and other seafood

while pregnant are smarter and have better developmental skills than kids of

women who ate less or none, researchers said on Thursday in findings they

called surprising.

The study, sure to be controversial, sought to assess whether it is wise, as

some experts and the U.S. government have recommended, for pregnant women to

limit their seafood intake to avoid mercury, a toxin that can harm the nervous

system of developing fetuses.

Dr. Joseph Hibbeln, a U.S.

National Institutes of Health researcher who led the study in The Lancet

medical journal, said seafood is a key source of omega-3 fatty acids, important

for fetal brain development.

The researchers said limiting pregnant women's weekly intake to 12 ounces (340

grams) of fish and seafood, as advised by the U.S. government, did not protect

their children from developmental problems. Women who avoid seafood, they said,

may actually be harming their babies by depriving them of essential nutrients

needed for the developing fetal brain.

"It was very surprising," Hibbeln said in a telephone interview. "We did not

expect such clear-cut results of the harm of low seafood consumption."

The study looked at the children of more than 8,000 British women tracked by

the University of Bristol to determine how kids fared if their mothers ate more

than 12 ounces -- about two average meals.

These children, compared to those whose mothers ate lesser amounts, were more

advanced in developmental tests measuring fine motor, communication and social

skills as toddlers, behaved better at age 7, and earned higher verbal IQ scores

at age 8, the study found.

The differences were striking when looking at kids whose mothers ate no

seafood. They were 48 percent more likely to have a relatively low verbal IQ

score at age 8 compared to children whose mothers ate the higher amount of

seafood.

POLLUTION CONCERNS

The Environmental Working Group, which calls the U.S. recommendations too

lenient, said the study highlighted the need for governments to take actions to

keep pollutants out of seafood, like cracking down on coal-burning power

plants.

"The study reinforces the importance of keeping our seafood supply clean,

making sure it's not overly contaminated with mercury and other chemicals that

could actually harm brain development," said Jane Houlihan, the group's vice

president for research.

Mercury can build up in fish living in waters contaminated with it due to

industrial pollution. Mercury can be particularly bad for fetuses and children

because it can cause neurological and developmental problems.

In 2004 the U.S.

Environmental Protection Agency and

Food and Drug Administration advised pregnant women and young children to eat

no more than 12 ounces per week of light tuna and other seafood lower in

mercury.

The agencies recommended they eat none of some fish with high mercury levels --

shark, swordfish, king mackerel and tilefish -- and no more than 6 ounces (170

grams) a week of albacore tuna because of mercury.

"When you look at the net benefits of the nutrients in seafood and the net

risks in seafood, it appears that the advisory inadvertently causes the harm

that it was intended to prevent," Hibbeln said.

In a commentary in Lancet, Dr. Gary Myers and Philip Davidson of the University

of Rochester Medical Center in New York wrote, "These results highlight the

importance of including fish in the maternal diet during pregnancy and lend

support to the popular opinion that fish is brain food."