A review of: Helland IB, Smith L, Saarem K, et al. 2003 Maternal supplementation with very-long-chain fatty acids during pregnancy and lactation augments children's IQ at 4 years of age. Pediatrics 2003 111:e39-e44; and Myers GJ, Davidson PW, Cox C, et al. 2003 Prenatal methylmercury exposure from ocean fish consumption in the Seychelles child development study. Lancet 361:1686–1692

The functional role of docosahexaenoic acid (DHA: C22:6 n-3) for the structural and functional development of young infants seems to be at least partly established. During pregnancy DHA is preferentially transferred from the mother to the foetus, particularly in the last trimester of pregnancy, and impairments in this passage are associated with intrauterine growth retardation (1). In infancy, brain DHA levels are higher if the infant has some dietary sources of DHA (for instance, human milk) and neurodevelopmental scores are associated with DHA levels in body pools represented by blood indices (2). Recently, DHA intake in early infancy has also been associated with lower blood pressure values at 5 years of age (3).

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