Did you know that omega 3 fatty acids, nutrients found if fish, plants and nuts, can be extremely healthy for babies and their breastfeeding mothers? Those mothers who took fish oil supplements had children who were more likely to have an IQ of 115 or over.

But to understand how this works, you need to get to know the three types of omega 3 essential fatty acids.

EPA – found mostly in fish and fish oil.

DHA – the same as EPA, but more important to our overall health.

ALA – found primarily in vegetable oils, seeds and dark green leafy vegetables. This is the “parent” acid which converts into both EPA and DHA.

Fish and breastfeeding is considered better than plant oil and breast feeding because it is more efficient. The problem with ALA is that the body is inefficient at converting it into EPA and DHA.

This means that you could eat lots of ALA but not get the real benefits of it. Fish and fish oil provide EPA and DHA in their natural form which benefit the body directly – that’s why they are better.

There are benefits for both the mother and child for developing a relationship between fish and breastfeeding:

Child

– Better memory, focus and comprehension.

– Less likely to develop ADD.

– More likely to have better hand-eye coordination.

Mother

– Half as likely to develop breast cancer.

– Less likely to suffer from post-partum depression.

– Reduced risks of “baby brain.”

It is better to use fish supplements than simply eat fish because eating fish is regarded as unsafe for mother and child. This is because pollutants from the water can transfer to your dinner plate and affect your health.

Therefore you need to use a supplement, but it must be of high quality; low quality or sub-standard supplements won’t benefit your health like listed above.

A high quality supplement is purified of the pollutants of water by molecular distillation and also contains twice as much DHA than EPA, with at least 250mg of DHA per capsule.

So now that you know this, you can build a relationship between fish and breastfeeding. This will go a long way in getting nutrients into your body and supplying your baby with them through your breast milk.