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There's something fishy here - a lesson in baby nutrition

© Dale Kiefer

Tantalizing new research indicates that a diet rich in long-chain, omega-3-fatty acids confers a host of long-term health benefits. Preliminary, but mounting, evidence points to health benefits ranging from improved cardiovascular health, to a lower incidence of behavior and learning disorders such as attention deficit disorder (ADD) and dyslexia, to improved mood, elevated intelligence, more rapidly maturing eyesight and even decreased inflammation of the joints. How does this relate to pregnancy, birth and fatherhood, you ask.

Beyond the obvious need to maintain your own and your wife's health, there's also an infant connection here. Recently the manufacturer of the infant formula, Enfamil, began trumpeting a newly available formula, Lipil, featuring omega-3 fatty acids. In press releases, the manufacturer cited evidence that babies consuming these healthy oils (otherwise found in cold-water fish, among other sources) scored significantly higher on IQ tests, and that their eyesight developed more rapidly that babies who did not receive the new supplements. The fact remains, however, that human breast milk is still the best possible source of nutrition for an infant, bar none. The makers of Similac plan to offer their own version of "souped-up" formula later this year.

This is all good news. And it emphasizes the importance of including these beneficial nutrients in our daily diets, either through the consumption of cold-water fish such as tuna or salmon, or through the routine consumption of supplemental fish-oil pills. Certain long-chain omega-3 fatty acids are also present in flax seed and others vegetable sources.

Mother's milk already contains the omega-3 fatty acids, DHA (docosahexaenoic acid) and ARA (arachidonic acid), two of the components recently added to the formula in question. Ironically, just when we are gaining increasing awareness of the need for these fatty acids in our diets (the typical American diet is woefully lacking in omega-3 fatty acids) the federal government is busy issuing press releases warning people - especially pregnant and nursing mothers - of the dangers of consuming some of the very fish that contain these beneficial nutrients.

Swordfish appears on a list issued by the FDA last year of fish that are so dangerously high in mercury that they pose a potential health risk, especially to fetuses and developing infants. Some consumer groups complained that the FDA's warning did not go far enough, and that it should have included tuna, another excellent source of omega-3 fatty acids, which also just happens to be perilously high in mercury.