It turns out fears of mercury and other issues with fish consumption for pregnant women are outweighed by the potential benefits, at least in this study.
Working with Danish researchers, the Harvard team tracked more than 25,000 women, asking them what they ate and how long they breastfed their babies. (Breast milk is also high in DHA, so its influence had to be measured and taken into account.) When the babies were 6 months old and again at 18 months old, the mothers answered questions about developmental milestones, from sitting up at 6 months to putting words together at 18 months.
Mothers who ate more fish while they were pregnant and breastfed their babies longer than other mothers had children who showed better physical and cognitive development when they were 6 months old and again at 18 months old, the study shows. Each practice alone was helpful.
Women who ate at least three servings of fish per week had children who were 25 percent more likely to score high on development at 6 months and 30 percent more likely to score high at 18 months than children of mothers who ate less than one serving of fish per week.
The authors note that the kind of fish most of the Danish women ate -- cod, plaice, salmon, herring, and mackerel -- are likely to have low mercury content.
This can be extended I think logically to fish consumption generally. All those beneficial Omega 3 fats help out cholesterol and even brain function (with the possible exception of tilapia, which has Omega 6s, which we already get lots of in our diets from other animal sources).
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