Tuesday, January 11, 2011

Mothers taking omega 3 oils make their breast milk higher in omega 3's.

Clearly mothers diet has an impact on their breast milk. This is important because so much body development happens in the first few months of life. Secondly breast milk should be the exclusive thing past babies lips for the first 6 months of life.

This placebo double blind (this means very good) study gave expectant mums "400 mg DHA or placebo from 18–22 wk gestation to parturition[birth]." They analyzed the breast milk at 1 month after baby was born. They found that the supplement group have significantly increased DHA (a good omega 3 fat).

This shows (a) that supplementation of diet with DHA (found in fish oils) increased the DHA that baby can use for its brain development. (b) that the fat metabolism is much longer than that of say a water soluble vitamin. Stopping the supplementation at birth there was still a significant effect on the breast milk composition at day 30. Therefore the DHA was "hanging around" in mum's body for at least 30 days, if not longer 

No comments:

Post a Comment