Mom2Mom Lounge

So I was just eating a tuna fish sandwich and was thinking, hum, it’s been awhile since I’ve had one and I like it. Then got to thinking about how during my first pregnancy…I barely touched it because you know….watch how much fish you eat while pregnant…mercury and all. I remember at the time thinking come on, how much could there possibly be??? But I listened. During my second pregnency, the info changed…you can eat it once a week, no more. Ok I listened. Now it’s coming out all over the place…it’s all nonsense. Which is what I thought and I am happy to hear it, not that I need to eat tuna fish more than once or twice a week, or anyother fish for that matter, but scaring pregnant women is just not nice. Not nice. So the new findings are the amount of mercury is not harmful and actually not eating fish during pregnancy is more harmful than eating too much.

Here are some facts found through recent studies…
· A Harvard Medical School study to be published this month followed over 300 mother-child pairs. Moms who ate more than two servings of fish per week had three-year-olds with the most advanced motor skills. Moms who followed federal guidelines and ate less than two servings of seafood per week had children with no developmental advantage. Moreover, even though pregnant women who ate more fish, naturally, had higher mercury levels, researchers observed no overall adverse outcomes among children whose moms ate the most fish!

· Research published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition found the typical American diet, low in seafood, is deficient in omega-3 fatty acids and may pose a risk to babies’ developing eyes and brains.

· Furthermore, the federal agency most knowledgeable about the state of our oceans recently said “the issue [of mercury] has been overstated. public health concerns regarding mercury in fish are not as profound as commonly perceived are scaring people away from a healthy and nutritious [fish] .” - National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA)

So basically, the deal is, eat what you want and everything will be ok, apparently. For every study that comes out, another countering study comes out a few days later…but fish is good for you and a healthy choice to let’s say, my meal of choice for the first 8 weeks of my first pregnancy…McChicken Sandwiches…don’t judge me, it was all I could keep down, something in the chicken is magical and my OB said if it was all I could keep down then fine eat as many as I wanted to. Come to think of it, I didn’t try the Fish Fillet…hum…food for thought.