Few subjects elicit more emotion than the safety of food eaten by pregnant or nursing women and its impacts—good or bad—on their children. And that’s how it should be, given the vulnerability of fetuses and infants, and the importance of optimal brain development to childhood and lifelong capacities and outcomes. But some of what we’ve heard over the years is not withstanding the test of time.
Take the case of pregnant and nursing women who are advised not to eat fish, all of the studies published on this subject find that children’s brains benefit when their mothers do eat more fish during pregnancy and nursing, and that children are not harmed by the minuscule amounts of mercury in most ocean fish. This post dispels the myths and provides suggestions to keep both mother and baby healthy.
This is how Harvard public health researchers put it in a recent medical literature review (Mozaffarian D, Rimm EB et al. 2006):
“For major health outcomes among adults, based on the strength of the evidence and the potential magnitudes of effect, the benefits of fish intake exceed the potential risks.”
“For women of childbearing age, benefits of modest fish intake, excepting a few selected species, also outweigh risks.”
The few exceptions to which they refer to are: shark, swordfish, king mackerel, and tilefish, which should be avoided by children and pregnant and nursing mothers.
Both Christiane Northrup, MD and Andrew Weil, M.D., stand out as a voices of reason within a misguided, drug-focused medical paradigm that downplays wellness and prevention. Dr. Weil wrote on this in the Huffington Post, titled “Pregnant? Eat Fish!”
Dr. Weil writes,
“Research now suggests that the benefit to a baby’s neurological health from omega-3s appears to far outweigh the potential for harm from small amounts of mercury in fish tissues.”
He goes on to cite the research backing this statement… findings we’ve reported, along with research explaining why the abundance of selenium in ocean fish renders the presence of traces of mercury virtually irrelevant to human health. Continue reading “Can Pregnant Women and Nursing Mom’s Eat Fish? Yes!” »
Evelyn Vincent
Native Plant Landscaper, Gardener, Labyrinth Design, Feng Shui Practitioner, Aromatherapy / Essential Oils, Big Fan of Nature and Living Simply.
"There is nothing in a caterpillar that tells you it's going to be a butterfly."
~ R. Buckminster Fuller
Populations around the world that eat fish regularly live longer and have less chronic disease than populations that do not. Whether this is because fish displaces meat or because it has positive attributes of its own is not clear. Certainly, fish provides high-quality protein without the saturated fat present in commercially raised (feedlot) meat and poultry. It is the fatty fish from cold northern waters – also provide omega-3 fatty acids, the special, unsaturated fats our bodies need for optimum health. The cold water fish are; wild salmon, mackerel, herring, sardines and bluefish.
The FDA has been considering approval of a genetically engineered (GE) salmon (and soon other popularly eaten fish to follow) for human consumption that grows at twice the rate of normal salmon. The GM salmon is a mere starter in the culinary revolution of GE animals for human consumption. The approval of GM salmon will pave the way for an ever-growing number of animals to be genetically engineered for human consumption.
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