Fatty Fish and Your Baby's Growth

Posted by Brenda Lane Sep 28, 2007

The September issue of the American Journal of Epidemiology has published new research on the topic fatty fish consumption and a possible link to what is known as fetal growth restriction or fetal growth retardation.

The researchers used a questionnaire format to measure the amount of both fatty and lean fish that the mothers ate at midpregnancy. Over 40,000 Danish mothers took part in the study. After birth, the babys' birth weight, birth length, and head circumference were all measured from the 40,000 subjects.

Results showed that mothers who are more than 60 grams of fish per day were significantly more likely to have a baby below the 10th percentile for age and gender as compared to the mothers who ate 5 grams of fish per day.

In fact, the results indicated that consuming fatty fish caused the increase in the growth restriction for the babies, while the lean fish consumption did not. Authors of the study believe that "consumption of fatty fish, a knownroute of exposure to persistent organic pollutants, could beassociated with reduced fetal growth."

Here are examples of fatty fish: sardines, ocean trout, Atlantic salmon, tuna, herring, mackerel

Here are examples of low fat fish: flounder, whiting, oysters, shrimp, lobster, crabs, squid, mussels, prawns

Brenda