• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar

MY PREGNANCY BABY

Hip Chick's Guide to PMS, Periods, Pregnancy & Babies

  • Home
  • PMS
  • Pregnancy
    • Maternity Fashion
    • Preconception / Trying to Conceive
    • Pregnancy Complications
    • Pregnancy Diet
    • Pregnancy Fitness
    • Pregnancy Health
    • Pregnancy Lifestyle
    • Prenatal Care
    • Postpartum
  • Babies
    • Baby Development
    • Baby Health
    • Baby Safety
    • Feeding Baby
    • Life with Baby
    • Baby Gear and Products
  • Parenting
  • Women’s Health

Fish in Pregnancy: What’s Safe and What’s Not

by DP Nguyen Leave a Comment

Seafood in Pregnancy

Seafood in Pregnancy
Seafood is so beneficial for pregnant women. It’s a great source of protein and iron – both of which are important for your unborn child’s growth and development. Plus, the omega-3 fatty acids found in fish and seafood can actually promote brain development in your baby. Even the 2010 Dietary Guidelines for Americans released earlier this year urge women who are pregnant or breastfeeding to eat 8 to 12 ounces of seafood weekly. (This is roughly two meals a week.)

Fish is good, but not all fish is created equal. When you’re expecting, you’ll want to avoid certain types of fish in pregnancy. Large, predatory fish can contain high levels of mercury, which isn’t good for your baby. If you regularly eat fish with high mercury content, this mercury can accumulate in your bloodstream. And when you’re pregnant, mercury can damage your baby’s developing brain and nervous system.

Fish to Avoid in Pregnancy

When you’re pregnant, you’ll want to avoid large, predatory fish and other types of fish that is high in mercury. Stay away from the following fish in pregnancy:

  • Shark
  • Swordfish
  • King mackerel
  • Grouper
  • Tilefish
  • Tuna steaks
  • Halibut
  • Pike
  • Walleye
  • White croaker
  • Sea bass
  • Canned albacore tuna
  • Sea bass
  • Gulf Coast Oysters
  • Marlin

The above fish are high in mercury and should be avoided during pregnancy. For the average person, they are fine to eat. But when you’re pregnant, you must think of your vulnerable baby.

There are certain fish that are lower in mercury, so you can enjoy one serving per month. This fish includes:

  • Mahi Mahi
  • Pollock
  • Blue mussels
  • Great Lakes salmon
  • Eastern oysters
  • Cod
  • Gulf coast blue crab

Friendly Fish in Pregnancy: Enjoy Two Servings a Week

It’s very important that you don’t swear off fish all together. There are many benefits to eating the right types of fish in pregnancy. Research studies have shown that eating too little seafood during pregnancy can hamper your baby’s communication, social, and fine motor skills during childhood. Too much seafood is bad as well, so you’ll want to keep a good balance.

Stick to the recommended 8 to 12 ounces of seafood a week – roughly two meals with fish as the main course – and your baby can reap the health benefits of fish.

The following is a list of fish that is lowest in mercury. Enjoy eating this fish twice a week:

  • Anchovies
  • Catfish
  • Butterfish
  • Clam
  • Domestic crab
  • Flounder
  • Tilapia
  • Freshwater trout
  • Whitefish
  • Whiting
  • Pacific salmon (wild)
  • Mid-Atlantic crab
  • Shrimp
  • Fish sticks
  • Haddock
  • Scallops
  • Herring

Tuna is one of the confusing fish. It can be your friend or your enemy, depending on the type. In general, you can eat light tuna (which is lower in mercury and safe to eat a few times a week). Albacore tuna should be avoided since it carries triple the mercury levels as light tuna.

A final note – seafood is delicious, so don’t swear it off. Do add it to your diet, but stick to the fish that is lower in mercury.

Learn more about Safe Eating During Pregnancy.

Filed Under: Pregnancy, Pregnancy Diet Tagged With: fish in pregnancy, pregnancy nutrition, seafood in pregnancy

About DP Nguyen

DP Nguyen is founder and editor of My Pregnancy Baby. She’s a mother of the cutest little boy, and is an experienced health author and blogger. She's been writing about pregnancy and women's health since 2008.

Reader Interactions

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

Primary Sidebar

Copyright © 2023 · Genesis Sample on Genesis Framework · WordPress · Log in

Manage Cookie Consent
We use cookies to optimize our website and our service.
Functional cookies Always active
The technical storage or access is strictly necessary for the legitimate purpose of enabling the use of a specific service explicitly requested by the subscriber or user, or for the sole purpose of carrying out the transmission of a communication over an electronic communications network.
Preferences
The technical storage or access is necessary for the legitimate purpose of storing preferences that are not requested by the subscriber or user.
Statistics
The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for statistical purposes. The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for anonymous statistical purposes. Without a subpoena, voluntary compliance on the part of your Internet Service Provider, or additional records from a third party, information stored or retrieved for this purpose alone cannot usually be used to identify you.
Marketing
The technical storage or access is required to create user profiles to send advertising, or to track the user on a website or across several websites for similar marketing purposes.
Manage options Manage services Manage vendors Read more about these purposes
View preferences
{title} {title} {title}