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MOTHERS nursing premature babies can halve the risk that their child will have significant developmental problems if they take fish oil supplements to fortify their breast milk.

A study involving hundreds of Australian babies from five hospitals nationwide has shown the frequency of mild mental delay in infants born weighing less than 1250 grams was cut by about 45per cent if their mothers took the   omega-3 supplements.

The biggest benefits were seen in girls, where the rate of mild mental delay was cut by more than 55 per cent, and significant delay by 83 per cent.

Only a small improvement was seen in premature male babies — a gender difference the study’s authors could not readily explain.

Omega-3 fatty acid, also known as docosahexaenoic acid, or DHA, is essential for healthy brain and nervous system development. Babies born more than seven weeks’ premature are at high risk of developmental disorders and learning disabilities, as well as physical health problems.

One of the co-authors, neonatologist Andrew McPhee, of the Women’s and Children’s Hospital in Adelaide, said more research was planned to test the “tantalising” possibility higher doses of fish oil supplements rich in omega-3 fatty acids might cut developmental problems still further, and also benefit boys.

“The thing that excites us is the lowered incidence of significant and even mild developmental deficiencies,” Dr McPhee said. “On a population basis, there aren’t too many things that have done anything like that.

“This is a simple nutritional strategy that increases something that babies may not be getting enough of.”

He said the study was of premature babies and there was no evidence to suggest women of full-term babies might benefit from taking the supplements.

The study, funded by the National Health and Medical Research Council, said uptake of DHA into developing brains was greatest in the last three months of pregnancy, and infants born prematurely instead had to rely on human milk or formulas that contained insufficient amounts of the nutrient.

The 614 infants in the study were randomly divided into two groups, with the mothers in one group given daily DHA supplements and the other group inactive soya oil, until the date the babies were due to have been born. Their development scores were taken 18 months later.

Although there was no overall improvement in the average development score in the group whose mothers received DHA, girls alone did do better.

The findings were published yesterday in the Journal of the American Medical Association.

Neonatologist Kei Lui, director of neonatal intensive care at the Royal Hospital for Women, Sydney, said the findings were promising. “The reduction in developmental delays is very important — a lot of educational resources go into helping these children, so if you have fewer of those babies it makes a quite substantial difference,” Professor Lui said.

Perveen Hassim-Borthwick, of the Sunshine Coast, gave birth to her daughter Eden 12 weeks early at the Royal Brisbane and Women’s Hospital last month. The baby weighed just 1.1kg.

“It has been a worry, because they tend to have a lot of development issues,” she said.

“Anything that would assist in that would be a comfort — I would have been very willing to try something like (DHA supplements), if I was told it would help with Eden’s development.”