Thursday, March 17, 2011

Mercury poisoning

My mum has always reminded me not to buy big fishes for the boys...reason being the amount of mercury content on bigger fishes which means older fishes may be more than the smaller/ younger fishes. Honestly speaking, I never check the facts but I assumed my mum is right as it does sound logic. Besides my  mum normally reads or pays attention to such info. So I always trust her advice ;p Anyway, back to the title, here's an informative personal experience about mercury poisoning for the sharing.

Mercury poisoning

Taken from Paren Thots

My son is 18 months old now. We started feeding our son cod fish, and occasionally salmon since he was six months old until one year old.

We found out that he was suffering from mercury poisoning during a routine checkup when he was one.

There were no signs or symptoms of mercury poisoning. We casually asked the doctor whether it's okay to feed him cod fish (chilean sea bass) every day since we read that it contains high mercury content.

The doctor said he was not sure, but if we were worried, he could do a mercury test for my son. We found out that my son's mercury level was nearly nine times higher than the allowed level, which is less than 75. His was 622.

After a dose of DMSA (the treatment for mercury poisoning) and a few months of natural healing, his mercury level is now back to the normal range, that is 48.3.

A lot of Malaysian parents are not aware of the danger of mercury poisoning. We were very lucky to discover this even before the symptoms showed. Just imagine if your child is poisoned and you finally find out, say 10 years later when his mental and physical health have been damaged by this poisonous substance.

I strongly recommend parents take their children for a mercury test if they have been feeding their children with cod fish or any deep sea big fish which may have high mercury content.

Early detection and treatment are effective damage control for our precious children. After all, we feed them with expensive fish because we believe it is good for their brain development, right?

A concerned mom

Fish is served on alternate days for the boys (same reason as the Concerned Mom i.e. for brain development) and normally I will buy Tenggiri (Spanish mackerel) if not the black or white pompfret fish and occasionally red snapper...but last Sunday I got to know another type of fish that is good for babies/young children recommended by one of the lady fishmongers. Since the few left Tenggiri fish seemed rather 'old' I decided to try the newly introduced fish. I can't recall the name as it sounded very Chinese to me but it does sound something like "nguyen" fish... I'll have to go back to her again to ask for the actual name as the fish meat is really nice with fine and soft texture..especially good for babies who just started on solid :)

4 comments:

CathJ said...

My boy don't like eat meat.. fish.. and vege... you see how hard am I too feed him.. *sigh*.. he only loves anything from egg.. like omelet... or the Egg tofu.. or japanese tohu..

May be saya yg kena check mercury level.. coz I LOVE fish sooo much... ~.~'

Aunty J said...

wow..so hard to feed him oh..but fr your blog cam ok ja dia makan tu hehehe...and sihat jua ba :)

Oh time preggy u kana jaga ur makan..jangan makan ikan pari ka org bilang coz of high mercury content...

Gloria said...

Hey Joyce, I sent you an article I researched online b4.. it tells the types of fish and mercury levels...
And ya... pregnant lady also need to watch out!! Esp tuna, it's one of the highest!!!

Hannie C said...

is it to fu fish? in hakka is thiu fu ng..
Gloria, would love to have that article too!! :) TQ!
CathJ. My son also doesn't eat fish other than salted fish! sayangkan.. ikan goreng tu punya sedap... *sigh*