What a mother does during pregnancy has an eerily strong effect on her children, researchers are finding more and more. It’s not just about cigarettes and alcohol, it’s about the kinds of foods a woman eats and the medications she takes. Now, a new study from Spain finds that when pregnant women eat a few servings of fish per week, their children are more likely to have higher scores on cognitive function and fewer autism-spectrum traits. And it doesn’t appear to take too many servings of fish per week to have this effect.
The researchers polled almost 2,000 pregnant women about the foods they ate, including how many times per week they consumed large fatty fish like tuna, swordfish and albacore; smaller fatty fish like mackerel, sardines, anchovies and salmon; lean fish; smoked fish; and shellfish. They also followed up with them after their children were born, and gave the children tests of cognitive function at the age 14 months and 5 years old. They also tested them for autism-spectrum traits.
It turned out that the children of women who consumed more fish during pregnancy had higher cognitive test scores, particularly at age five, and fewer autism-spectrum traits. The women on average consumed about 500g of fish per week, which the authors say is about three servings. But for every 10g increase in “dose” beyond the U.S.-recommended 340g/week, their children had small corresponding increases in cognitive test scores.
To read the rest of the story, please go to: Forbes
