Magical Supplement: Prenatal DHA reduces early preterm birth, low birth weight

Nonsense. 350 pregnancies over 6 years. Gestation is complex. Much of the data are self-reported. The result is clinically insignificant anyway — e.g., 2.9 day longer average gestation in treated group.

“University of Kansas researchers have found that the infants of mothers who were given 600 milligrams of the omega-3 fatty acid DHA during pregnancy weighed more at birth and were less likely to be very low birth weight and born before 34 weeks gestation than infants of mothers who were given a placebo. This result greatly strengthens the case for using the dietary supplement during pregnancy.”

Read more at the University of Kansas.

2 thoughts on “Magical Supplement: Prenatal DHA reduces early preterm birth, low birth weight”

  1. The first thing that stood out in the abstract is how poorly written it is. For example “the DHA group had fewer infants born at <34 wk of gestation (P = 0.025". They give a p value and don't provide any numbers that explain what it applies to (how many fewer infants). In such case, the p value is meaningless. Then there's "shorter hospital stays for infants born preterm (40.8 compared with 8.9 d; P = 0.026)" Don't they mean 4.8 compared with 8.9? Otherwise, that's one heck of a bad outcome. They make no mention of the inclusion criteria for the study – normal pregnancies, high risk, primiparous patients, what?

    Does the AJCN journal do any peer review of their publications?

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