A Randomised Trial of DHA in Pregnancy to Prevent Postnatal Depressive Symptoms and Enhance Neurodevelopment in Children

Funded Activity Summary

Postnatal depression strikes 12-17% of women in the year after giving birth. Postnatal depression can result in emotional, behavioural and developmental problems in children. Although there are many complex psychological and social factors involved, supplementing the diet with an omega-3 fat called DHA has been shown to alleviate the symptoms of depression. Enriching diets with DHA has also been associated with improvements in visual and neural abilities of young infants. Normally, DHA is obtained through the mother's diet and is then passed onto the developing baby whilst in the womb. However, the amount of DHA that is delivered to the baby in pregnancy is high, and in most cases is far higher than most Australian mothers get in their diets. In this study we will test whether supplementing the diets of pregnant women with DHA results in women suffering less depressive symptoms and children with better development scores. If our study is successful, it will result in a simple and effective way to prevent postnatal depression and improve the developmental outcome of the children.

Funded Activity Details

Start Date: 01-01-2005

End Date: 01-01-2008

Funding Scheme: NHMRC Project Grants

Funding Amount: $1,649,000.00

Funder: National Health and Medical Research Council

Research Topics

ANZSRC Field of Research (FoR)

Clinical Sciences not elsewhere classified

ANZSRC Socio-Economic Objective (SEO)

There are no SEO codes available for this funding activity

Other Keywords

child development | dietary fatty acids | docosahexaenoic acid (DHA) | maternal nutrition | nutrition in pregnancy | postnatal depression | pregnancy

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