Maternal Consumption of Seafood in Pregnancy and Child Neuropsychological Development: A Longitudinal Study Based on a Population With High Consumption Levels

Abstract

Seafood consumption during pregnancy is thought to be beneficial for child neuropsychological development, but to our knowledge no large cohort studies with high fatty fish consumption have analyzed the association by seafood subtype. We evaluated 1,892 and 1,589 mother-child pairs at the ages of 14 months and 5 years, respectively, in a population-based Spanish birth cohort established during 2004-2008. Bayley and McCarthy scales and the Childhood Asperger Syndrome Test were used to assess neuropsychological development. Results from multivariate linear regression models were adjusted for sociodemographic characteristics and further adjusted for umbilical cord blood mercury or long-chain polyunsaturated fatty acid concentrations. Overall, consumption of seafood above the recommended limit of 340 g/week was associated with 10-g/week increments in neuropsychological scores. By subtype, in addition to lean fish, consumption of large fatty fish showed a positive association; offspring of persons within the highest quantile (>238 g/week) had an adjusted increase of 2.29 points in McCarthy general cognitive score (95% confidence interval: 0.42, 4.16). Similar findings were observed for the Childhood Asperger Syndrome Test. Beta coefficients diminished 15%-30% after adjustment for mercury or long-chain polyunsaturated fatty acid concentrations. Consumption of large fatty fish during pregnancy presents moderate child neuropsychological benefits, including improvements in cognitive functioning and some protection from autism-spectrum traits.

Psychomotor Ability in Children Prenatally Exposed to Methylmercury: The 18-Month Follow-Up of Tohoku Study of Child Development

“…Of 20 previous studies using the BSID (Davidson et al 1995(Davidson et al , 2008Jedrychowski et al 2006Jedrychowski et al , 2007Lederman et al 2008;Plusquellec et al 2010;Stokes-Riner et al 2011;Llop et al 2012;Watson et al 2012;Valent et al 2013;Boucher et al 2014;Hsi et al 2014;Strain et al 2015;Marques et al 2015Marques et al , 2016aRothenberg et al 2016;Julvez et al 2016;Prpić et al 2017), 11 reported adverse effects of methylmercury on the PDI, and three observed such effects on the MDI; that is, these rates of 11/20 and 3/20 differed significantly (Fisher exact test, P = 0.019). Thus, psychomotor development appeared to be more susceptible to methylmercury than mental development.…”

Association between maternal intake of n-6 to n-3 fatty acid ratio during pregnancy and infant neurodevelopment at 6 months of age: results of the MOCEH cohort study

“…PUFAs play pivotal roles in infant neurodevelopment [5, 6]. In particular, LA and ALA are regarded as nutritionally essential fatty acids because they cannot be synthesized de novo from macronutrients [3] and can also convert into AA and DHA, respectively [23].…”

“…Other cohort studies from England, Spain, and Japan showed that maternal seafood and fish consumption as a proxy for LC-PUFAs was associated with neuropsychological test scores in children [5, 6, 28, 29]. The dietary n-3 LC-PUFAs including ALA, are found mainly in marine products like seaweed and fish.…”

Role and Progress of DHA Dietary Supply in Brain Development of Maternal and Golden Periods

“…Fish consumption is considered as surrogate for omega-3 fatty acid consumption, which associates with cognitive outcomes in pregnant women 88,89 . Children from mothers with no seafood consumption were at greatest risk of adverse or suboptimal verbal IQ.…”