Yahoo Lifestyle Prenatal supplements won't enhance baby's brain power, according to new study.
Pregnant mothers who take omega-3 fatty acid supplements won't help in boosting their baby's brain power, according to a recent study.
After tracking more than 600 children from before they were born until the age of four, researchers found no benefit in the cognition, language or motor scores of the children whose mothers consumed fish oil supplements and were given a placebo.
"Given the amount of marketing that occurs around the use of fish oil supplements for brain development, these are significant findings," said study leader Professor Maria Makrides of the South Australian Health and Medical Research Institute and the University of Adelaide.
Major Australian study disproves baby claims that omega-3 improves baby's brain power. Source: Getty
The pregnant women in the study received either DHA - an omega-3 fatty acid - supplements or a placebo, but researchers found no difference in the two groups at 18 months.
The Australian study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) did a follow-up at four years, where the children were tested for differences in cognition, the ability to perform complex mental processing, language and executive functioning such as memory, reasoning and problem solving. Again, there was no significant difference.
While the study did not test other health benefits of omega-3 fatty acids, Professor Makrides says that their research "does not support prenatal DHA supplementation to enhance early-childhood development."
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