Consumption of fish and seafood by pregnant Polish women and the supply of docosahexaenoic acid and eicosapentaenoic acid from these products

Abstract

Background. fish and seafood are the main source of docosahexaenoic acid (dHa) and eicosapentaenoic acid (epa) in the diet. there is no available data concerning the intake of fish and seafood by pregnant polish women. Objectives. the purpose of the study was to analyze the consumption of fish and seafood by pregnant women and to estimate the daily supply of dHa and epa provided by these products. Material and methods. a fish and seafood intake questionnaire was given to 204 full-term pregnant women. Results. 23% of the surveyed women did not eat any fish during pregnancy; 58% ate fish once a week or once every two weeks; 19% of pregnant women ate fish 2-3 times a week; only 5% of respondents ate seafood. the surveyed pregnant women recorded a total of 0.28 (range 0-1.9) g dHa per day and 0.131 (range 0-1.16) g epa per day from the supply of fish in their diet. the recommended daily requirement varies depending on the source: for dHa (0.2 g/day or 0.6 g/day) and for epa (0.22 g/day); thus, 52% or even 86% and 80% of surveyed women, respectively, obtained through their diet of fish and seafood less than the recommended daily intake of dHa and epa. Conclusions. fish and seafood consumption during pregnancy is either low or rare. the amount of fish and seafood in the diet of pregnant women does not meet the daily requirement for docohexaenic acid and eicosapentaenoic acid. dietary modifications in pregnancy are strongly advised in order to prevent a deficiency of dHa and epa. Key words: fish, pregnancy, diet, eicosapentaenoic acid, seafood, docosahexaenoic acid. Summary ISSN 1734-3402, eISSN 2449-8580this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution-noncommercial-sharealike 4.0 international (cc By-nc-sa 4.0). license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/). Broś-Konopielko M, Białek a, oleszczuk-Modzelewska l, zaleśkiewicz B, różańska-walędziak a, teliga-czajkowska J, tokarz a, czajkowski K. consumption of fish and seafood by pregnant polish women and the supply of docosahexaenoic acid and eicosapentaenoic acid from these products.

Dietary intake of DHA during pregnancy: a significant gap between the actual intake and current nutritional recommendations

“…In our study, we found that 21% of the study population did not eat fish at all, which is similar to the findings of Broś-Konopielko et al (23%) [3]. Smaller percentage of women who do not eat fish has been published in the 'Health behaviors of pregnant women' report (13.4%) [33], and the study by Ługowska et al (5%) [26].…”

“…Smaller percentage of women who do not eat fish has been published in the 'Health behaviors of pregnant women' report (13.4%) [33], and the study by Ługowska et al (5%) [26]. Only 10% of our study population complied with the recommendations regarding fish consumption, which constitutes the mean from other studies in Poland, where such consumption was reported in 2.6%-19% of the women [3,14,26]. On a positive note, most respondents demonstrated a marked preference for fatty fish, which contain on average 4-fold more DHA as compared to lean fish.…”

“…Broś-Konopielko et al, in their study from 2017, reported a significantly higher DHA intake (mean: 280 mg/day). However, these authors emphasized that over half of the subjects consumed <200 mg of DHA per day [3]. In our study, DHA intake of <200 mg/day in diet was found in 92% of the women.…”

“…Low fish consumption (9-12 g/ day) among pregnant women has also been observed in Germany [16]. In our study, we excluded seafood other than fish due to the fact that it is not common in the diet of Polish pregnant women and is the source of only 0.5 mg/day of DHA [3].…”

“…The amount of DHA transported across the placenta to the fetus is strictly correlated with maternal intake [3,18], and DHA accumulation in the central nervous system occurs after 20 weeks of gestation [1,4], so pre-term infants are at a particularly high risk for DHA deficiency [16,21]. Only a small amount of DHA is synthesized in the body from the alpha-linolenic acid, making DHA a necessary component of the diet [30].…”