Eating Fish During PregnancyDoes eating fish during pregnancy healthy for you and your baby? Fish is a highly nutritious food and an excellent source of protein, vitamins and minerals such as Vitamin D, Iodine and omega-3 fatty acids. All these nutrients provide important health benefits to you and your baby when you are pregnant or breastfeeding. Omega 3 is important for the development of the central nervous system in babies. This is both before and after they are born.

The concern with eating fish is that the high mercury content in some types of fish can damage the nervous system of babies or young children. This will lead to lower scores on tests that measure attention, learning and memory. Unborn babies are particularly vulnerable because their brains are developing very rapidly.

Mercury occurs naturally in the environment and accumulates in fish, as methyl-mercury.

While all fish contain some methyl-mercury, most fish in Australian waters have very low mercury levels. For most people, this mercury from fish is not a health risk. It is mainly a concern for women who are planning pregnancy, are pregnant, or are breastfeeding or for children under the age of six.

The Australian Dietary Guidelines advise eating one or two fish meals per week for good health. There are only a few types of fish, that authorities recommend limiting in the diet – these are billfish (swordfish/broadbill and marlin), shark/flake, orange roughy and catfish. The reason these fish are high in mercury is because they live a long time and are at the top of the food chain, making it more likely that mercury builds up in their bodies.

Pregnant women, women planning pregnancy and young children should limit their intake of shark (flake), broadbill, marlin and swordfish to no more than one serve per fortnight with no other fish to be consumed during that fortnight. For orange roughy (also sold as sea perch) and catfish, the advice is to consume no more than one serve per week, with no other fish being consumed during that week.

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Two to three serves (one serving is 150 grams) of other types of fish are quite safe for pregnant or breastfeeding women or for women planning pregnancy.

A serving for children under six is 75 grams. A 150-gram serving for adults and older children is equivalent to approximately 2 frozen crumbed fish portions. A 75-gram serving for children under six is approximately 3 fish fingers (Hake or Hoki is used in fish fingers).

2-3 serves a week of fish with lower levels of mercury (see below) is quite safe

  • Mackerel;
  • Silver Warehou;
  • Atlantic Salmon;
  • Canned Salmon & canned tuna in oil;
  • Herrings and
  • Sardines

The mercury in fish advice is available from the Food Standards Australia New Zealand website.

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