Total mercury exposure in early pregnancy has no adverse association with scholastic ability of the offspring particularly if the mother eats fish.

ABSTRACT: There is a public perception that relatively low doses of mercury found in seafood are harmful to the fetal brain but little consistent evidence to support this. In earlier publications we have shown no adverse associations between maternal total blood mercury levels and child behaviour, early development or cognitive function as measured by IQ. However, for IQ the lack of adverse association was conditional upon the mother being a fish eater. In this paper we analyse further data from the Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children (ALSPAC), this time examining whether prenatal exposure to total mercury is associated with the child's scholastic abilities in reading, spelling, phoneme awareness, mathematics and science; the number of participants with prenatal mercury and relevant test

SUBMITTER: Hibbeln J 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5993870 | biostudies-literature | 2018 Jul

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature