[Bookworm]

I hope to be pregnant soon, and I want to do everything right, and though I know that isn't possible, I want to make SURE I'm not exposing my baby to any unnecessary toxins or deficienncies. Maybe I can't be sure, but I want to try.

I sometimes grind up flax seeds and put them in our food, but I have read that flax seeds really don't satisfy our nutritional need for essential fatty acids. (At least the long chain kind, which seem to be so vital for fetal brain development?) We eat the cage-free, vegetarian-fed eggs that claim to have Omega-3s. I don't know if their claim is true, though, or if this even comes close to supplying a good amount. I see those bottles of flax oil supplements unrefrigerated at the health food store and I feel I can't trust anything but my own research.

Dr. Mercola says I need fish oil. He and Dr. Weil list companies whose oil is supposed to be mercury-free.

BUT DO I TRUST THEM? I don't know. That's a lot of trust to put in someone who may be getting a kickback or is actually selling the product on their site, when the issue is my baby's health.

I have twelve, yes, twelve, mercury fillings from childhood, so I really don't want to expose my baby to even the tiniest, tiniest bit of additional mercury. We have twelve strikes against us already.

Has anyone researched this and found additional sources of information on it?

Thanks in advance for anyone willing to share their knowledge.

 

[ent_mom]

Hi Amy,

I can certainly relate to your questions. I am by no means an expert, but what I finaly decided on was to take Neuromins which is made from algae (I'm a vegetarian). http://www.dhadepot.com I buy the Vitamin Shoppe brand (Item #: VS-1714).

Best of luck with trying to conceive!

 

[PikkuMyy]

Although the flaxseed oil doesn't actually supply DHA, it does supply ALA, which our bodies (as long as we're healthy) turn into DHA. So it's not that you won't have any. From what I've read, you only really need to worry if you aren't healthy since then your body wouldn't be able to turn enough into DHA.

Of course, I'm vegan, so I wouldn't take fish oil anyway. But as ent mom said, there is DHA directly taken from Algae, so you can take it that way, or take blue-green algae supplements, which will also give you DHA directly.

 

[toraji]

Is there any way you can remove your amalgams and chelate before TTC? I am really really wishing that I had before conceiving. I am now faced with the thought that I have passed a lot of mercury to my dd via breastmilk and placental transfer, because of my mouthful of mercury fillings and my previously insufficient diet. I am suspecting that I am having mercury toxicity issues, made worse by the strain of nursing and pregnancy on my body, but can't go through amalgam removal or chelation until she's weaned. This could have been greatly decreased had I done the removal/chelation prior to conception.

Ok, on to dietary mercury: I am currently taking cod liver oil. The good quality ones will be molecularly distilled to remove contaminants, as well as third-party independent lab tested. I choose cod liver oil because it is a sure-fire way to get EPA and DHA, which I am not positive my body converts very well from ALA found in plant oils. People with impaired thyroid function, or who have diabetes, or come from genes of people who traditionally ate lots of seafood, have limited conversion capabilities. I also take cod liver oil for the fat soluble vitamins A and D, because I live in a cloudy climate and have difficulty getting enough sun to convert vitamin D through the skin. Vitamin A is also very important to have in your diet, and people's ability to convert beta-carotene into vitamin A also varies from none to some (see http://www.ars.usda.gov/is/AR/archiv.../clues0301.htm for more info).

However, if you are still worried about possible exposure to mercury from fish oil, I personally found reassurance that cod liver oil is proven to be beneficial to autistic children. There is a link between mercury sensitivity and autism, so if fish oils were contaminated then I think there would be less of a benefit for autistic children. You can do a seach on Google about the mercury-autism connection, and recommendations for cod liver oil.

Here is a link for more info on mercury exposure:
http://www.westonaprice.org/envtoxins/mercury.html

Good luck with your decision! We live in such a toxic world, don't we?

 

[Bookworm]

Thanks for your replies, everyone.

Wow, I feel like I could spend my life reading about nutrition yet never be able to know all that I need to know.

Algae is looking appealing, though of course I want to make sure that is mercury-free, too. I guess I am not understanding how the water has mercury in it, but sea salt and algae are okay, but fish are not? Well, I will keep reading multiple sources, as it seems my pre-pregnancy paranoia has reached its all-time high.

Toraji, regarding the removal of my fillings: I understand completely how you feel. I am torn about this issue. After a good amount of research, and consulting a natural-minded dentist, I have decided to leave the fillings. It seems I will be exposing myself to even more mercury by removing them, even with the most careful of removal tecniques. (Of course I went to the dentist to make sure they are all securely in place before I even THINK about conceiving.) Chelation makes me nervous, too, although that is probably irrational. Anyway, there are pros and cons to both sides. After days of crying and researching (after finding out what those "silver" fillings from my childhood actually are) I finally made peace with the fact that I have some mercury exposure, and my child, therefore, will have some, too. BUT, I will never allow my child to eat fish, or have a vaccination or flu shot or ANYTHING that contains mercury, and I will make sure all of our water is filtered. That it is not a perfect solution, I know, but in this toxic world, there doesn't seem to be a perfect solution for me, and this decision will at least hopefully put my child on a level playing field with the rest of his or her peers. I am careful to take lots of vitamin C, as I have read that that helps. Goodness, do I already sound like a bad parent? I make our own cleaning products and won't spray for bugs since we might get pregnant NEXT YEAR, for pete's sake. I guess what I'm saying is I'll do all I can, and forgive myself for the things I can't make perfect, like my fillings. Sigh. Do you think you'll decide to remove yours after weaning? I'll be curious to follow your progress and your thoughts. I would respect a decision either way - it's a tough issue. Best of luck to you- I know it's emotional. By the way, thanks for the info on cod liver oil. I am very interested in the link between mercury and autism, so that is very, very interesting.

 

[Quirky]

I believe the algae used for the DHA pills is grown in tanks, so it wouldn't be mercury contaminated. Also, even if it were in the ocean, algae is at the bottom of the food chain - mercury bioaccumulates on its way up the food chain. So the bigger the (carnivorous) fish, the bigger the mercury burden. If you do eat fish, it's much safer from a mercury perspective to eat smaller fish lower down the food chain.

 

[toraji]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Amy_in_Memphis Do you think you'll decide to remove yours after weaning? I'll be curious to follow your progress and your thoughts. I would respect a decision either way - it's a tough issue. Best of luck to you- I know it's emotional. By the way, thanks for the info on cod liver oil. I am very interested in the link between mercury and autism, so that is very, very interesting.

Thanks for the sympathy.

You're right, it's so hard to live naturally in such a polluted environment. My stance is to just keep myself as healthy as possible through diet and clean living so that my body does not have to work any harder than it already does.

I am definitely going to remove my amalgams after weaning. They are really old and I can feel damage in between the amalgam and the tooth, so they need to come out and be replaced. My DH is going through amalgam removal right now. While we don't have a biological dentist, he does use lots of water, suction, and a dental dam to prevent large mercury exposure on removal. Unfortunately the closest biological dentist to us is 2 hours away, so we settled for this dentist close to home. This dentist's opinion is that most of the mercury in the fillings has already come out, since the fillings are so old, but he still uses precautions anyway. DH has had one quadrant of his mouth worked on, and did not feel sick in any way afterward, so I think the dentist did a good job.

I will probably chelate with alpha-lipoic acid after amalgam removal. Have you seen Andy Cutler's No Amalgam site? He has a book that I want to get that talks about chelation and mercury poisoning. Apparently you need to chelate to get the mercury out of your brain. http://www.noamalgam.com/ He is also quite active on the Mercury-Autism Yahoo Group: http://health.groups.yahoo.com/group/Autism-Mercury/
and it's related website for info on mercury detox:
http://home.earthlink.net/~moriam/

I am of course a big proponent of fish/cod liver oil, so this is my bias speaking that I prefer it over the DHA algae pills. Some caveats that I have heard with the algae DHA pills is that they are extracted with hexane, and are also expensive. There has been a study linking fish consumption during pregnancy to early brain development in children: http://www.unc.edu/news/archives/jun...els062404.html I wish I'd had figured this all out before I got pregnant.