Related Experiment Video
Updated: Oct 2, 2026
Modifying Levels of Maternal Dietary Folic Acid or Choline to Study the Impact of Deficiencies on Offspring Health Outcomes
Published on: June 28, 2024
Low consumption of seafood in early pregnancy as a risk factor for preterm delivery: prospective cohort study
Sjúrdur Fródi Olsen1, Niels Jørgen Secher
1Maternal Nutrition Group, Danish Epidemiology Science Centre, Statens Serum Institut, Artillerivej 5, DK-2300 Copenhagen S, Denmark. sfo@ssi.dk
Objective:
To determine the relation between intake of seafood in pregnancy and risk of preterm delivery and low birth weight.
Design:
Prospective cohort study.
Setting:
Aarhus, Denmark.
Participants:
8729 pregnant women.
Main Outcome Measures:
Preterm delivery and low birth weight.
Results:
The occurrence of preterm delivery differed significantly across four groups of seafood intake, falling progressively from 7.1% in the group never consuming fish to 1.9% in the group consuming fish as a hot meal and an open sandwich with fish at least once a week. Adjusted odds for preterm delivery were increased by a factor of 3.6 (95% confidence interval 1.2 to 11.2) in the zero consumption group compared with the highest consumption group. Analyses based on quantified intakes indicated that the working range of the dose-response relation is mainly from zero intake up to a daily intake of 15 g fish or 0.15 g n-3 fatty acids. Estimates of risk for low birth weight were similar to those for preterm delivery.
Conclusions:
Low consumption of fish was a strong risk factor for preterm delivery and low birth weight. In women with zero or low intake of fish, small amounts of n-3 fatty acids--provided as fish or fish oil--may confer protection against preterm delivery and low birth weight.
Related Concept Videos
01:28Development of the Oral Microbiota
01:11Testing a Claim about Mean: Known Population SD
Estimating a population mean requires the samples to be distributed normally. The data should be collected from the randomly selected samples having no sampling bias. The sample size needed to be higher than 30, and most importantly, the population standard deviation should be already known.
In most realistic situations, the population standard deviation is often unknown, but in rare circumstances, when it...