A study published by the Journal of American Medical Association on Tuesday reveals that consumption of fish oil has no beneficial effects on a pregnant woman, contrary to the popular belief.

The general belief among pregnant women is that intake of fish oil prevents postpartum depression and boost the development of the baby's brain.

Research conducted earlier indicated that Docosahexaenoic acid (DHA), an omega-3 fatty acid, found in fish oil is helpful in the process of brain development of baby during pregnancy. But these researches were found to be done on a very confined scale. It was found later that most of the results were found positive on women who either took fish oil from before or took good care of their health from the starting.

All these past quotes, news, research and talks gave a lot of hype to the issue, because of which many pregnant women started taking fish oils capsules to meet recommendations of daily intake for 200mg/d DHA.

In another study conducted recently, Australian researchers divided 2,399 women who were halfway through their pregnancies into two groups. One of these groups was given a fish liver oil capsule daily while the other received a vegetable oil capsule. After birth, both the teams were assessed to find out the level of depression of the mother and also the babies' cognitive development. The study found that the fish oil group did no better than the vegetable oil group.

The studies, however, did not change people's view on the other benefits of fish oil like improving the immune system which enables people to resist incidence of common diseases such as common cold, cough etc. Fish oil is also very helpful in delaying the normal aging process, pain and inflammation that may occur in joint, eyes, blood vessels and nerves.