You are here

Article Text

Article menu
Download PDFPDF
Commentary
Health promotion and public health
Increased intake of omega-3 during pregnancy can reduce preterm births
  1. Kate Frazer
  1. School of Nursing, Midwifery and Health Systems, University College Dublin, Dublin, Ireland
  1. Correspondence to Dr Kate Frazer, School of Nursing, Midwifery and Health Systems, University College Dublin, Dublin 4, Ireland; kathleen.frazer{at}ucd.ie

https://doi.org/10.1136/ebnurs-2019-103064

Statistics from Altmetric.com

    Request Permissions

    If you wish to reuse any or all of this article please use the link below which will take you to the Copyright Clearance Center’s RightsLink service. You will be able to get a quick price and instant permission to reuse the content in many different ways.

    Commentary on: Middleton P, Gomersall JC, Gould JF, et al. Omega-3 fatty acid addition during pregnancy. Cochrane Database Syst Rev 2018;210. Art. No: CD003402. doi: 10.1002/14651858.CD003402.pub3

    Implications for practice and research

    • Increasing omega-3 intake during pregnancy may reduce the incidence of preterm birth.

    • No further studies comparing omega-3 with placebo are required.

    • Future research should ensure inclusion of wider socioeconomic populations and assess longer term maternal and child outcomes.

    Context

    The WHO defines preterm births as babies born alive before 37 weeks of pregnancy; 10.6% of all live births globally are preterm, and it is the leading cause of death for children aged <5 years.1 2 The causes of preterm births are complex; the role of diet and nutrition is acknowledged.1 Fish and fish oil contain omega-3 long chain polyunsaturated fatty acid (LCPUFA); particularly docosahexaenoic acid (DHA) and eicosapentaenoic acid (EPA) have been associated with longer …

    View Full Text

    Footnotes

    • Competing interests None declared.

    • Provenance and peer review Commissioned; internally peer reviewed.

    • Correction notice This article has been corrected since it appeared Online First. The word ’fatty' has been removed from the title.