Many mothers have seen advertisements about DHA and know that DHA is called "brain gold" and helps the baby's brain development. But most mothers may only know one thing and not the other.

How useful is DHA for the baby's growth? How can babies get enough DHA? Do they need additional preparations to supplement? Today, we will tell you the answers one by one.

What is DHA?

DHA is actually the abbreviation of docosahexaenoic acid,dha algal oil powder which is an essential unsaturated fatty acid for the human body.

DHA in the human body is mainly distributed in the retina and cerebral cortex, and has a close relationship with the development of brain nerves and vision. It is one of the important substances for the development and growth of the human brain.

Why do babies need to supplement DHA?

It plays an important role in the baby's brain development. The fetal and infant period is a critical period for the rapid development of the central nervous system. Studies have found that the concentration of DHA in brain tissue increases linearly from the middle and late stages of pregnancy to the age of 2 years, which suggests that DHA may have an important impact on the development of fetal and infant neurological functions, at least as a nutrient basis.

DHA is closely related to the development of fetal and infant vision, and can improve the visual acuity and cognitive ability of infants.

DHA has immunomodulatory effects and can reduce the incidence of infant food allergies.

DHA may improve infant sleep and reduce the number of newborn awakenings.

How to supplement DHA correctly?

According to the recommendations of the Chinese Nutrition Society and the "Expert Consensus on DHA Supplementation for Pregnant Women and Infants in China", infants and young children need to obtain 100 mg of DHA from food or supplements every day. Basically, a reasonable diet can meet the baby's need for DHA.

1. Food acquisition

Under normal circumstances, the breast milk of mothers who are not picky eaters is rich in DHA, especially in colostrum. Therefore, for full-term infants who are breastfed, breast milk is enough and no additional DHA supplementation is needed.

For babies fed with milk powder, you can choose formula milk containing DHA, in which the DHA content should be 0.2-0.5% of the total fat.

After the baby adds complementary food, he can eat foods rich in DHA. Relatively safe sources of DHA include: marine fish such as salmon and sardines, shrimp, crab, shellfish, cuttlefish, kelp, seaweed, wakame and other seaweeds, and egg yolks are also rich in DHA.

Note that some marine fish have high mercury content, such as shark, swordfish, tilefish, and nitrile fish, so try to avoid eating them.

To ensure that your baby gets enough DHA, it is recommended to eat fish 2 to 3 times a week, and at least 1 meal is high-fat marine fish.

In addition, you can also add vegetable oils rich in α-linolenic acid such as flaxseed oil, which is beneficial for the body to convert α-linolenic acid into DHA, but the conversion rate is relatively low.

2. Artificial preparations

If your baby is picky about food and cannot eat enough DHA in food, you can supplement it with DHA supplements.

Common DHA supplements include algae oil and fish oil. Algae oil is extracted from marine single-cell algae and is relatively less susceptible to pollution. At the same time, algae oil DHA has high purity, strong antioxidant capacity, is not easy to become fishy, ​​and is easy to absorb, making it more suitable for babies.

We also need to pay special attention to the need for DHA in premature infants. Because the brain cone cells and retinal photoreceptor cells of premature infants are not mature enough, there will be varying degrees of damage to intelligence and vision.

However, due to different feeding methods, the intake of DHA is different. It is recommended to consult a doctor to determine whether your baby needs to supplement DHA through supplements.