Pregnant women should eat fish

PREGNANT women should eat plenty of fish as their children’s brains will benefit, scientists claim.

Going against NHS advice that seafood should be limited during pregnancy – as it can contain high levels of methyl mercury that is a risk to a baby’s growing nervous system – a Norwegian study has concluded that ‘low mercury exposure showed no negative effects’.

The study of 40,000 mothers found that ‘children’s communication skills at five were significantly better if their mothers had eaten seafood when pregnant’.

But the researchers from the Norwegian Institute of Public Health did advise that fish ‘with high mercury contamination levels, such as tuna, should still be avoided’.