Can Eating Fish Really make your Child Smarter?

Can fish consumption while pregnant really make your new-born child smarter? Can fish consumption increase brain development of young children? It turns out, the FDA thinks so. “It’s become clearer and clearer that there are significant benefits (from eating seafood) in terms of health and development for the fetus and young children,” stated Stephen Ostroff, the FDA’s acting chief scientist “There are so many women that are missing out on the benefits.” Numerous studies show that children from pregnant or nursing mothers who consumed fish had higher I.Q.s and better cognitive development than children whose mother’s did not. Fish contains omega-3 fatty acids which make up more than 50% of the human brain.

Dr. Roger B. Newman is the director of the obstetrics and gynecology department at the Medical University of South Carolina and a member of the Perinatal Nutrition Working Group says that “Seafood has multiple nutritional benefits to pregnant women, to developing fetuses and to young children.”

A study in 2007 conducted on thousands of mothers and their children published in The Lancet suggested that pregnant women eat a minimum of about three serving s of fish per week for optimal child development:

Gene Smart wants to make it as easy as possible to get the right amounts of the right type of fish. That is why our website provides an extensive list of the amounts of omega-3 fatty acids in the most commonly eaten fish in it’s 100% FREE  Healthy Eating Guide and provides highly concentrated omega-3 dietary supplements for those who do not get enough omega-3s from eating fish in their diets. When it comes to family, we all want to provide the best quality of life for those we cherish the most. With children, eating fish or taking fish oil during pregnancy is just one way of showing how much we care.

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