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What Do Omega 3 Fatty Acids Have To Do With Fetal Development?

July 2, 2009 by Peter Bertonich  
Filed under Diet

DHA is an essential fatty acid found right through your body, and in particular your brain. And it has been discovered that DHA is very important in brain development, as well as other aspects of fetal development. DHA is also a major fatty acid found in the retina of the eye, as well as other organs of the body.

And, as importantly it is found in breast milk.

Now babies cannot produce their own DHA, so they get it from their mother. They get it through the placenta before they are born and from the breast milk after. For this reason a mother is constantly losing some of her supplies of DHA to her baby.

To aid in infant and fetal brain development it is now recommended that moms and moms to be should be taking DHA supplements, or more specifically Omega 3 supplements, because DHA is an essential omega 3 fatty acid. And of course there are other supplements that they should be taking as well, like folic acid.

DHA supplementation is essential for fetal brain and eye development, and other aspects of fetal development.

Recommendations for how much DHA should be consumed by pregnant and nursing mothers varies, but are around 200 to 300 mg per day. With our modern diet it is unlikely that we get enough DHA in our diets.

DHA is found primarily in fish oils, along with other essential Omega 3 faty acids like EPA. However some experts are wary of suggesting that pregnant or nursing mothers should be taking fish oil supplements.

The fish at the high end of the food chain contain the most Omega 3 fats and so would be the obvious choice for a supply of DHA, but some experts believe that these fish are contaminated with some pollutants found in the sea like PCBs and mercury, and that mothers shouldn’t be exposed to these.

And certainly there are fish oil supplements that can contain higher levels of heavy metals and other sea borne contaminants.

There are very strict international standards for the levels of contamination accepted in Omega 3 supplements. The company that makes the very best Omega 3 supplements believes that their supplements should be free of any contaminants, and seek to make their products to a standard way stricter than the international standards. Their Omega 3 fish oils supplements are free of any form of chemical contamination, because they use a fish that is found in the cleanest part of the worlds oceans, they process the fish in a particular way then they decontaminate to an extreme degree.

It is now quite clear that pregnant and nursing mothers ought to all be taking Omega 3 fish oils supplements, both for their own health and the health of their babies and infants.

Fortunately there are now clean Omega 3 fish oil supplements available that eliminate the need to worry about chemical contamination. Visit my website to find out where to source these.

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