Fish and Pregnancy Danger
An article in the latest issue of the American Journal of Epidemiology reports a correlation between fish consumption and worse pregnancy outcomes. It was done in Denmark. Mothers who had eaten fish four or more times per month during their pregnancy had babies that were less healthy on several measures of fetal growth than mothers who had not eaten fish.
The differences were small; they required a sample of about 40,000 women to detect. However, they are convincing partly because this effect was found for only fatty-fish consumption. For lean fish, the results were quite different. Organic pollutants accumulate in fat; mercury accumulates in protein, so these results are more likely due to organic pollutants than to mercury.
A reason to get one’s omega-3 from flaxseed oil rather than lots of fish or fish oil.
Earlier post about a study that found beneficial effects of pregnant women eating fish.
Reference: Is High Consumption of Fatty Fish during Pregnancy a Risk Factor for Fetal Growth Retardation? A Study of 44,824 Danish Pregnant Women. Th. I. Halldorsson, HM Meltzer, I Thorsdottir, V Knudsen, and SF Olsen. Am. J. Epidemiol. 2007 166: 687-696.
August 30th, 2007 at 5:43 pm
Thanks for posting this, it is very important.
I remember I read fish oil capsules are safer than fish in relation to contaminants. I don´t have any link at hand, sorry.
August 31st, 2007 at 1:52 am
Barely statistically significant as a measure of size, and a study of IQ showed the opposite effect recently.
http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn11193-breaking-fish-advice-during-pregnancy-might-benefit-babies.html
August 31st, 2007 at 6:34 am
Thanks for the link. I should have mentioned my earlier post about that study. What does “as a measure of size” mean?
August 31st, 2007 at 8:19 am
I mean that this study was simply measuring size while the other study measured IQ.