Although a certain amount of a person’s intelligence is genetically inborn, there are definitely ways to maximize that innate brain power and give your baby (or toddler) an advantage.
Start before baby is born.
Even if your baby hasn’t even seen the outside world yet, you can still get a head start on boosting her brain by keeping yourself healthy. Children exposed to alcohol and/or illegal drugs in utero often have learning disabilities and severe behavioral problems, such as aggressiveness. Even cigarette smoke can be harmful to the mind of a growing fetus; studies show that children whose mothers smoked while they were pregnant have lower reading scores than children of nonsmoking mothers.
Get to know your DHAs.
You may have heard commercials for baby formula touting that their product is better because it contains “DHA.” The DHA they’re speaking of is docosahexaenoic acid, a type of omega-3 fatty acid, and it’s important that a mother has a sufficient level of this compound during pregnancy in order to reap the benefits for Baby. A study conducted in 2004 showed that DHA plays a critical role in proper brain development. According to Salynn Boyles of WebMD Medical News, “Researchers found that infants born to mothers with higher blood levels of the omega-3 fatty acid docosahexaenoic acid (DHA) at delivery had advanced levels of attention spans well into their second year of life. During the first six months of life, these infants were two months ahead of those babies whose mothers had lower DHA levels.” Natural sources of DHA include algae, fish, eggs, flaxseed oil and organ meats. Of all these sources, fish is by far the best. A general rule of thumb for measuring DHA content: the colder the water, the higher the omega-3 content in the fish oil. Atlantic cod and Pacific salmon are two examples of DHA-rich fish. If you don’t like fish, there are algae-based DHA supplements on the market.