Professor Maria Makrides (SAHMRI theme leader for Healthy Mothers, Babies and Children and Director WCHRI) and colleagues have recently published a major paper in the May 7 2014 issue of JAMA indicating that Omega-3 fatty acid supplementation during pregnancy does not appear to improve cognitive outcomes for children. The team conducted a longer-term follow-up study on a previously published study in which researchers found that average cognitive, language, and motor scores did not differ between children at 18 months of age. For the follow-up study, outcomes were assessed at 4 years of age, at which point when any subtle effects on development should have emerged. Although there are recommendations for pregnant women to increase their intake of the omega-3 fatty acid (DHA) to improve fetal brain development, this randomized trial finds that prenatal DHA supplementation did not result in improved cognitive, problem-solving or language abilities for children at four years of age.
For the full story please see the media release.
