How to eat fish during pregnancy?

Been reading the headlines lately? Then chances are your head's swimming with fish stories. Fish is heart healthy! But wait, it's also full of mercury! Fish is loaded with baby-friendly DHA! But not so fast — it's also loaded with PCBs!

Food is a bit of a minefield when you are pregnant or breastfeeding - you are trying your very hardest to give your baby-to-be the very best start in life by eating a balanced, nutritious diet. But with so much advice flying about, it can be difficult to know what you can and can't eat.

One major minefield is fish and in particular, fish containing mercury as high levels of mercury could potentially harm the development of a baby's central nervous system. So is fish safe to eat during pregnancy or when breastfeeding? Which fish can I eat and which have high levels of mercury? How often should I eat fish?

Avoid: Shark, swordfish, king mackerel, fresh tuna, sea bass, tilefish, mahimahi, grouper, amberjack, and fish from contaminated waters

Limit to six ounces per week: Canned (or packaged) albacore tuna and freshwater fish caught by family and friends

 

Limit to 12 ounces per week: Shellfish, canned (or packaged) light tuna, smaller ocean fish, farm-raised fish, and store-bought freshwater fish

 

Safely eat: Wild salmon, sole, flounder, haddock, halibut, ocean perch, pollack, cod, and trout

 

What's the dish on fish?

 It's a first-rate source of lean, baby-building protein — an essential ingredient throughout the making of your amazing baby, but an especially important one in the third trimester, when brain growth is fast and furious. What's more, fish, especially the fattier varieties, is an excellent source of DHA, the fabulous fat that's known to boost baby brain power. At 28 weeks pregnant, it benefits your brain power, too — getting enough omega-3s can improve your memory (remember when you had one of those?) and your mood (a low intake of DHA during pregnancy is linked to postpartum depression). Plus, fish deserves those heart healthy headlines — a diet rich in fish lowers the risk of cardiac disease by stabilizing heart rhythms, reducing blood clotting, and lowering blood pressure.

 

The dark side to the fish story.

It's true that some fish, particularly large ocean-faring fish (and especially predator types) contain high levels of mercury, a distinctly baby-unfriendly toxin. Others, especially those that frequent polluted lakes and rivers, are laden with PCBs, a chemical you definitely don't want to be feeding a fetus — or an infant. To play it safe, you'll need to keep all those fish off your dish while you're pregnant, as well as when you're nursing. And to play it extra safe, you'll have to limit other kinds of fish as well. 

 

Fish is a very important component of a balanced diet and pregnant and breastfeeding women shouldn't reduce their consumption - it's just a question of eating the right type of fish.