The influence of supplemental docosahexaenoic and arachidonic acids during pregnancy and lactation on neurodevelopment at eighteen months

Abstract

Docosahexaenoic acid (DHA) and arachidonic acid (AA) are important for neurodevelopment. The effects of DHA (220 mg/day, n=41), DHA+AA (220 mg/day, n=39) or placebo (n=34) during pregnancy and lactation on neurodevelopment at 18 months, and the relations between umbilical cord DHA, AA and Mead acid and neurodevelopment were studied. An age-specific, standardized neurological assessment for the evaluation of minor neurological dysfunction (MND), and the Bayley Scales of Infant Development (BSID) were used. The intervention did not influence any of the outcomes. Umbilical venous (UV) Mead acid was negatively and n-6 fatty acids were weakly positively associated to the BSID mental developmental index. Children with simple MND had lower UV DHA compared to normally classified children. We conclude that relatively short-term maternal DHA or DHA+AA supplementation does not influence neurodevelopment at toddler age, although some parameters of brain development are related to perinatal DHA and AA status.

Impact of dietary n-3 polyunsaturated fatty acids on cognition, motor skills and hippocampal neurogenesis in developing C57BL/6J mice

“…Studies in full-term infants show that both prenatal and postnatal supplementations are able to improve cognition, corresponding with the findings in preterm infants that it is important to start supplementation in the last trimester of gestation [37,38,41,[43][44][45][46][47][48][49][50]. However, in humans, the outcome of infant n-3 PUFA supplementation on long-term brain development appears to be subtle [38,40,[45][46][47][48][49][50][51][52][53][54][55][56][57], whereas rodent studies have shown more pronounced beneficial effects of n-3 PUFA supplementation [11,22,51,[58][59][60][61]. This may be explained by the fact that human supplementation studies are limited to noninvasive parameters and often encounter difficulties when studying a broad lifespan for long-term effects: these studies rarely exceed the infant age.…”

“…Clinical studies have shown that (perinatal) LCPUFA supplementation may be beneficial for healthy neural development in both preterm and full-term infants [31][32][33][34][35][36][37][38][39][40][41][42]. Studies in preterm infants underline the significance of the timing of supplementation because these infants cannot fully benefit from the accumulation of LCPUFA starting in the last trimester of gestation.…”

Current Information and Asian Perspectives on Long-Chain Polyunsaturated Fatty Acids in Pregnancy, Lactation, and Infancy: Systematic Review and Practice Recommendations from an Early Nutrition Academy Workshop

“…Two studies evaluated the impact of n-3 LC-PUFA supplementation during pregnancy and extended during the first 3 months postpartum on children's later cognitive development at 18 months [39] or at 7 years of age [40]. No beneficial effects of supplementation were found on mental development index (MDI) scores at 18 months or on cognitive scores on the Kaufman Assessment Battery for Children (KABC) test at 7 years.…”

The effect of maternal omega-3 (n-3) LCPUFA supplementation during pregnancy on early childhood cognitive and visual development: a systematic review and meta-analysis of randomized controlled trials

“…This trial invited all preterm children and a random subsample of term children to complete the cognitive assessment (40) and a subset of term children born at one trial center for a visual assessment (44), based on predetermined sample size estimates. The other trials had high attrition (27-86%) (12,26,31,38,(41)(42)(43)(45)(46)(47)(48)(49)(50)(51), and 2 had higher attrition in the treatment group than in the control group (41,45,46). Whereas the most likely reason for attrition was the inability to have participants attend appointments, some attrition could be (43), complications during the pregnancy (26,29,38,42), premature birth (31,39,41,42,44), and infant anomalies or disorders likely to affect development (31,39,44).…”