It’s confusing: You want to do the right thing for your baby’s health, but the fish advice seems murky at best. Is it okay to eat seafood? What about white fish? Fish and breastfeeding can be a healthy combination, but you need to know what the risks are and how to get your dose safely.

Mercury: The toxin at the heart of the ruckus
As shipping lanes get busier, we release toxins into the oceans in the form of gasoline, oils, etc. This led Western doctors to warn pregnant women, young children, and the elderly, the three traditional high-risk people, to avoid eating too much fish, because they were susceptible to mercury poisoning.

Mercury (and other toxins) get trapped in the fat of the fish as their bodies try to filter it out of the heart and blood. But once it’s in the fat, it has nowhere to go and it stays there permanently.

When a large fish, such as a shark, eats a smaller fish, the toxins from both fish are now in the fat, creating a chain of highly concentrated toxic fat that runs throughout the fish and lactation puts it at risk. You are at the same risk from passing these toxins to your baby as pregnancy.

Postpartum baby development
However, scientists overlooked one very important thing when they called for a ban on fish: DHA, an essential fatty acid component of omega 3, is critical to your child’s development, especially in the first six months after birth.

This EFA is a building block for proper eye formation, neurological development, and socialization skills. A deficiency of DHA can lead to all kinds of problems in old age, including ADD, ADHD, and obesity.

Postpartum Depression: Fish and Breastfeeding
This deficiency also affects mothers: the lack of DHA is a clear indicator of postpartum depression. We naturally give our babies the nutrients they need, to the detriment of our own nutritional needs: it’s a biological fact. So what happens when we run low on DHA? Postpartum depression and a forgetfulness known as ‘mama brain’.

Balance between need and risk
So how do we engage? The risk of eating fish and breastfeeding seems high, but so is the risk of not getting enough DHA. The answer is a high-quality, ultra-pure fish oil.

When selecting a fish oil, it is absolutely critical that you know what to look for to ensure purity and ensure you are getting a high enough dose for optimal baby development. To find out what three things to look for before buying a supplement, visit my website.