DHA Overdose?! Really?!

No, not really. Depends. Well, read on.

One day, my 19 weeks pregnant wife asked me to go online to check how much DHA can a pregnant mother take safely. Is there such thing as DHA overdose? Since the DHA supplement we're taking is 300mg per tablet, she just want to be sure that it's not too much.

Well, what the wife wants, the wife gets (usually).

There's a short answer, and a long answer. Being a long-winded kinda guy, I'm gonna give you both LOL! Short answer are for those who just wants the quick answer to the question "Should I take DHA? And how much DHA is recommended?". In the Long Answer, I will give you more information and findings with regards to topic like "Why is DHA important?", "Why is Vitamin A dangerous?", "What kind of fish can I safely eat?" etc. Well, here goes.

Short Answer:-

Q: Can you overdose on DHA?
A: Depends on what it's made of. Some DHA is obtained from liver such as cod liver oil, which contain the Retinol form of Vitamin A, which should be avoided altogether by pregnant mothers since it's toxic. Pregnant mothers should avoid eating food that contains liver. If the DHA is obtain from the body of the fish, then it is safe, and you won't really overdose on that. Also if you're taking DHA supplement, make sure it is molecular distilled or obtained from originating algae. Otherwise it may contain dangerous environmental pollutants such as mercury, dioxins and PCBs (polychlorinated biphenyls), which can interfere with the development of the baby during pregnancy.

Q: How much DHA should I take?
A: According to Omega3FAQ.com, the National Institutes of Health and the International Society for the Study of Fats and Lipids recommends a minimum of 300 mg of DHA a day.This website recommends that if you don't think your DHA intake is sufficient, you can take 100mg of DHA supplement daily. Generally, if you are taking 2 - 3 servings of fatty fish per week, it should be sufficient. However, be very careful in choosing which fish to eat as some of them has high level of contaminant such as mercury and should be avoided altogther. Look for the title "What type of fish can I eat?" under the Long Answer.

Q: So should I take DHA supplement?
A: If you feel that you are not taking enough DHA, then it's a good idea to supplement, since DHA is particularly important to pregnant and breastfeeding mothers. With regards to dosage, anywhere between 100mg to 300mg, depending on your normal diet, should be sufficient.

Thus ends the Short Answer.

Here comes the Long Answer.

Long Answer:-

Q: What is DHA?
A: Docosahexaenoic acid (DHA) is an Omega-3 essential fatty acid. DHA is the fundamental building block of the brain.

Q: What are the benefits of DHA?
A: An excerpt taken from the article "The Omega-3 that should be on your mind" by Dr. David Perlmutter says this:
"It is essential that the fetus receive DHA while in the womb for optimal brain and eye development. Moreover, recent studies clearly show that infants who receive optimal levels of DHA in the womb and through nursing perform better on cognitive tests.

But DHA is not just baby food. Clinical studies show that in healthy adults, high consumption of DHA is associated with a reduced risk for developing Alzheimer's, dementia and age-related macular degeneration, a major cause of blindness. Low levels of DHA in red blood cells are associated with attention deficit and hyperactivity disorder in children, as well as cognitive decline in the elderly."

According to an article "DHA & Pregnancy: Should women take a DHA supplement while pregnant?", the author, Julie King, listed a few benefits of DHA to pregnant mothers:-
1. DHA & Children's IQ: Studies seems to proof that DHA helps to improve the development of the brain and might actually produce smarter babies.
2. DHA helps to prevent preterm labour: Research has shown that women who take DHA supplements during the last trimester of their pregnancy are more likely to carries their babies to term.
3. DHA & postpartum depression: studies have shown that women who have a higher intake of DHA in pregnancy are less likely to suffer from postpartum depression after giving birth.

The article also says that DHA is found naturally within breastmilk. It is also added to infant formulas because it is believed to be an essential nutrient that helps assist in the brain and eye development in babies and young children.

Read the full article here.

Q: How much DHA should I take?
A: National Institutes of Health and the International Society for the Study of Fats and Lipids recommends that healthy adults consume a minimum of 220 mg of DHA a day. The panel also recommends that pregnant and nursing women consume at least 300 mg of DHA a day.

Q: What are the sources of DHA.
A: Food that contains DHA are :-
- nuts
- seeds
- eggs
- soy beans
- tofu
- cruciferous vegetables, such as cauliflower, broccoli and Brussels sprouts
- Cold-water fish, such as mackerel, salmon, herring, sardines, black cod, anchovies, and albacore tuna
- Cod liver oil (should be avoided by pregnant mothers as it contains vitamin A)
- Fatty / oily fish
- microalgae
- and of course, fish oil supplements

When you buy fish oil supplements, ensures the quality and purity of the product. Fish oil supplements that have gone through the process of molecular distillation is safer as it will not contain dangerous environmental pollutants such as dioxins, mercury, and PCBs which can interfere with the foetus's development. Another alternative is to go for "fish oil" supplement made of microalgae, which is where the fish got their source of DHA at the first place.

The omega-3 fatty acids found in plants such as whole grains nuts and seeds is ALA (Alpha-Linolenic Acid), but what you really need are long-chain omega3 fatty acids such as DHA and EPA that are found in fatty acids. In theory, our body can convert ALA into the long-chain omega 3 fatty acids like EPA and DHA. However, it's extremely difficult for the body to do so. And, even when it does happen, the amounts produced are too small to have any significant effect. So fatty/oily fish is still the best sourse for DHA and EPA. HOWEVER not all fish are safe to be eaten. Which begs the next question.

Q: What type of fish can I eat?
A: According to The U.S. FDA and EPA:-
"By following these 3 recommendations for selecting and eating fish or shellfish, women and young children will receive the benefits of eating fish and shellfish and be confident that they have reduced their exposure to the harmful effects of mercury.

1. DO NOT eat Shark, Swordfish, King Mackerel, or Tilefish because they contain high levels of mercury.

2. Eat up to 12 ounces (2 average meals) a week of a variety of fish and shellfish that are lower in mercury. Five of the most commonly eaten fish that are low in mercury are shrimp, canned light tuna, salmon, pollock, and catfish.

Another commonly eaten fish, albacore ("white") tuna has more mercury than canned light tuna. So, when choosing your two meals of fish and shellfish, you may eat up to 6 ounces (one average meal) of albacore tuna per week.

3. Check local advisories about the safety of fish caught by family and friends in your local lakes, rivers, and coastal areas. If no advice is available, eat up to 6 ounces (one average meal) per week of fish you catch from local waters, but don't consume any other fish during that week.

Follow these same recommendations when feeding fish and shellfish to your young child, but serve smaller portions."

You can read the full article by FDA and EPA here, which I highly recommend that you do so.

To get the mercury Levels in Commercial Fish and Shellfish compiled by FDA and EPA, click here.

You can also read the article "The Best Types of Fish for Health" by Mark Stibich, Ph.D. from About.com.

Q: Why should pregnant mothers avoid liver (including cod liver oil) altogether?
A: Vitamin A comes in two forms, animal based, which is retinol, and plant based which is betacarotene. Liver, and liver products such as pate, liver sausage, even cod liver oil, contains very high levels of the retinol form of vitamin A, which can be harmful to your developing baby, particularly in the first trimester. To read more on this subject, you can visit these 2 websites:-
1. Babycentre.co.uk
2. Bio-medicine.org

In conclusion:
Pregnant and nursing mothers should make it a point to take enough DHA. Eating the recommended amount of fatty fish together with DHA supplement of high quality and purity should give you the sufficient amount of DHA needed for you and your baby. As long as you follow the guidelines found in this post and in all the 3rd party articles provided here in, you should be pretty safe. Of course, feel free to search around for more information if you want and I'd appreciate if you share any interesting findings with me :).

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Pica?!!

My wife was a quite worried about eating seafood as she is in the first trimester and some seafood is known to contain high levels of mercury, and so I did a google search on it. As I was reading an article about eating during pregnancy from KidsHealth, at the food cravings section, I came across this word - Pica.

What in the world is Pica?? The only Pica I know is the noise that Pikachu made in Pokemon LOL! So I clicked on the link and this is what I learnt:-

Pica is an eating/medical disorder (it's also a unit of measurement, but that's not what I'm talking about) characterized by having an appetite mostly for nonfood or non-nutritive items which can also include food ingredients.

While it's normal for young kids to put various items into their mouth (most kids do that at some point in time) since it's how they explore and learn about their surroundings, kids with Pica goes beyond innocent exploration and it's characterized by persistant and complusive cravings.

Pica can be seen in young children (especially those who are developmentally disabled), pregnant women (as food cravings), people with epilepsy and also in animal (mostly dogs). It can last for one month or longer.

Here are some examples of nonfood items people with Pica normally crave or consume (source: KidsHealth):-
- dirt
- clay
- paint chips
- plaster
- chalk
- cornstarch
- laundry starch
- baking soda
- coffee grounds
- cigarette ashes
- burnt match heads
- cigarette butts
- feces
- ice
- glue
- hair
- buttons
- paper
- sand
- toothpaste
- soap

Below is a picture of items found in a pica patient's stomach (picture obtained from Wikipedia)

1,440 items found in a patient suffering from Pica

Ewww!! We learn new things everyday, and I learned that we're living in a crazy world that's always full of surprises LOL!!

To read more about Pica such as signs and causes of it; treatment etc, please visit the sites below for more information.

References:
1. Wikipedia
2. KidsHealth

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A Crabby Craving??!!

Alright, here's a funny story, or 2, about cravings.

Once upon a time in a small town somewhere in the state of Sarawak, East Malaysia. A pregnant wife suddenly woke up in the middle of the night (around midnight I was told) and was very angry and throwing a lot of tantrums, demanded the husband to immediately go and buy some yummy crabs for her to eat (yeap, a crabby craving), and out he went.

However, most of the restaurants that served crabs are usually closed at such ungodly hour and tried as he did, he just could not find a single yummy crab selling restaurant that was still open.

The husband was determined not to return empty handed (for the sake of his own life), so he did the only thing he could do at that point in time, which was to CROSS TO THE OTHER SIDE OF THE RIVER to try his luck.

He was lucky to find a place that sells yummy crab, but by the time he reached home, it was already about 4am in the morning!! I just hoped, for his sake, that the wife wasn't too cross about eating cold yummy crab for (very) early breakfast LOL!!

Nice try, crab! I really like your suggestion of going back to my bed to count sheep, unfortunately, my wife is WAYYY more persuasive than you are, so, I guess you're breakfast!

Story No. 2 - A tarty craving??!!

Ok, before you start to wonder what do I mean by tarty, it's actually related to edible tarts.

One fine, and very busy (for the husband) afternoon, a pregnant wife suddenly developed a very strong craving for egg tarts. So even though the husband was busy, he decided to go and buy some egg tarts for his lovely wife.

When he reached home, the wife said that the tarts were cold, and she was in no mood to eat cold tarts. So she insisted that he goes out to buy her some hot yummy egg tarts.

The couple was actually our relatives and this was related to us by our cousin sister (another relative). She was furious and thought that the wife was a really mean and terrible person.

Of course this cousin sister wasn't married and was never pregnant (she was only in her early 20s), so how is she to know what others' going through during their pregnancy? But then again, who am I to say that I know what being pregnant is like? After all, I AM A GUY!!!

Please Share: I would love to hear from you, about your experiences with cravings. Were the wives from the crabby and tarty stories behaving badly? Are they being too extreme and too hard on their husband? Can you and is it possible to actually control your cravings? Do you have a similar, or maybe even a more extreme story to tell? Please please tell me!! Me wants to know. :)


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Impossible Morning Sickness??!!

I've heard of stories where the pregnant wife asked the husband to go out hunting for THE food of their desire (cravings) very late at night, or very early in the morning depending on how you look at it (I'll share a funny story in my next post); I've also heard of stories where the morning sickness is so bad that the wife just didn't feel like eating anything. How about a wife who's experiencing morning sickness and feels sensitive to most of the food, and still feel very hungry most of the time??

HOW, OH HOW, CAN I SATISFY MY WIFE??? WHAT SHOULD I DO???

Just the smell, and sometimes, just by thinking about some food, is enough to make her nauseous, and she also gets hungry pretty frequently. When I asked her if she's craving for any food or what does she feel like eating, she usually can't think of anything. Occasionally she may thought of something, but most of the time, nothing. And if I don't fill her stomach quick enough, she'll get nauseous again because being too hungry makes her want to vomit. Argh!!! Thank God she is someone who will try her best to make do with what's available to her, such as a cup of Milo with a few pieces of cream crackers or cereal, but it makes me feel helpless not being able to do anything for her.

Cream Crackers - believed to be good for combating morning sickness. Munch 1 or 2 pieces when you feel nauseous, it may help you to feel better.

Please Share: Feel free to share or leave a comment if you have any suggestions or advice for ME!! LOL! Or just share about your experiences. I'll be more than happy to hear them :)

For those who have not experience morning sickness, don't get me wrong, it's NOT a bad thing. Granted it's not a good feeling, and despite it's name (which is rather misleading), unfortunately morning sickness does not occur only in the morning but can affect you at any time of the day, and to some people is an all-day affair. Different people will have a different experience. Some mothers did not feel anything througout the whole duration of pregnancy (the lucky ones), some have mild discomfort and some are affected very badly. It also does not necessary last through out the whole pregnancy. Like for my wife, usually after the 1st trimester she will start feeling better. There are of course some unlucky ones who suffered from severe morning sickness throughout pretty much the whole 9 months.

Scary as it may sound, some people believes that having morning sickness usually means that your baby is healthy and growing well. According to Wikipedia, studies have shown that women who suffers from morning sickness are less likely to have miscarriages or to give birth to a baby with birth defects. There are of course doctors who disagree with it. Go and read more about it here. HOWEVER, not having any morning sickness does NOT mean that there's anything wrong with your pregnancy. I've met people who did not suffer from morning sickness but still gave birth to beautiful babies.

Moral of the story: Do your routine check up and listen to your gynecologist. Don't worry about having or not having any morning sickness. As long as you do your check ups, or if you are in doubt, just go to your doc, I'm sure he/she will tell you if there's anything wrong, and if the sickness is really bad, I'm sure your doc will be able to help you out by giving some anti-nausea medication.

To read more about morning sickness, you can look up Wikipedia. Another site that offers good and simple to understand information is www.morningsicknesshelp.com. Granted they are also trying to sell their products, but no harm in checking out good info.


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Welcome to lots of ramblings on Parenting & Pregnancy

Hi everybody,

My name is Daddy-O (yeah I know, not much of a name huh?).

My eldest son is 5yo, and I have 2 kids, so I considered myself a very young parent, and the fact that I'm only 31yo kinda puts me in that category as well (for those who disagree with the previous statement, let's just agree to disagree).

Even after 5 years of being parents, me and my wife still find that there are a lot of marvelous, wonderful, interesting, weird, SCARY, would-love-to-avoid-at-all-costs things relating to parenting and pregnancy to be discovered and we're merely scratching the surface of things. We also learned that a lot of information can be obtained from the cyberspace of today. Some of these information are extremely helpful, but unfortunately, some information are wrong, misrepresented, extreme, or just downright hard to understand. I'm sure a few, if not most of you have experienced this when you search for information on a certain disease/infection/medicine, you'll get websites that gives you scientific facts that only someone in the medical field can understand.

A simple example, if you look for Attention-deficit / Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) in the CDC website, the first sentence you'll read is:-

"ADHD is a neurobehavioral disorder characterized by pervasive inattention and/or hyperactivity-impulsivity and resulting in significant functional impairment."

Call me stupid, but I have to read it 3 times to be able to get SOME idea of what it's talking about, and WTH is "pervasive inattention"??? LMAO!!! Don't believe me? Go read it for yourself here. :P And this is considered quite moderate.

The 2 main purpose of this blog is:-

1. To share our experiences, findings, research, opinions, fears, assurances, joy, anger (you may get the idea that I'm quite an emo person, but I believe I'm not), and useful general and localized information eg. one of my pet project I'm looking forward to start is to compile a list of good, reliable, and trusted confinement ladies recommended only by my good friends, for the benefit of readers of this blog from Malaysia, Singapore, Brunei, and possibly other parts of the world, as some of the good confinement ladies I met were actually flown to other countries upon request LOL!

2. Equally as important, for YOU, the readers, to comment and share about your experiences and knowledge for MY benefit, ;P, and the benefit of others, of course.

I hope that this will be a place where, parent(s), parent(s)-2-be, or anyone who's interested in any topic discussed herein, can encourage and help each other throughout this long, exciting, rewarding, and at times challenging and very difficult phase of our lives.

Oh yeah, I will at times post things that are unrelated, classified as Random Ramblings. This may include things such as movie reviews, cd reviews, a piece of interesting news etc that are totally unrelated to parenting and pregnancy.

The next 2 posts will be about myself and why I'd rather remain anonymous. So do read on and learn more about me.

Cheers,
Daddy-O


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