What are the risks to a fetus of a woman eating too much seafood while pregnant?
“This is difficult to determine because the only times seafood consumption has ever led to clinical manifestations were due to environmental poisonings,” Myers says. “The first was at Minamata, where other contaminants in addition to methylmercury were involved. Also, Minamata involved a very large exposure over a very long time: 10 years.” Myers points out that if a woman living near Minamata Bay had been eating contaminated fish for an extended period and then became pregnant, she would have dramatically higher levels of mercury in her body than a woman eating seafood from an uncontaminated environment. What’s more, women living in that time and place typically ate much more seafood than today’s typical Western woman. “The second outbreak was in Niigata, Japan, which involved a similar environmental poisoning about 10 years later,” Myers adds. “Yet, at Niigata, the mother of the only child actually diagnosed with Congenital Minamata Disease (which includes such effects as severe ment
“This is difficult to determine because the only times seafood consumption has ever led to clinical manifestations were due to environmental poisonings,” Myers says. “The first was at Minamata, where other contaminants in addition to methylmercury were involved. Also, Minamata involved a very large exposure over a very long time: 10 years.” Myers points out that if a woman living near Minamata Bay had been eating contaminated fish for an extended period and then became pregnant, she would have dramatically higher levels of mercury in her body than a woman eating seafood from an uncontaminated environment. What’s more, women living in that time and place typically ate much more seafood than today’s typical Western woman. “The second outbreak was in Niigata, Japan, which involved a similar environmental poisoning about 10 years later,” Myers adds. “Yet, at Niigata, the mother of the only child actually diagnosed with Congenital Minamata Disease (which includes such effects as severe ment
