Pregnancy and lactation offer a tremendous window of opportunity to support optimal brain development for your child. Many nutrients are involved with higher-level brain function. These include sulfur-rich protein, B vitamins, iodine, and DHA. All of these have been discussed extensively in this section and/or in the section on Prenatal Supplements.

When you consume these nutrients during lactation, significant levels of them will be in your milk and available to your child. This is the very best way to get intelligence-forming nutrients to your baby.

It is equally important to watch for brain stressors. Constant arguments around children, especially infants, is extremely destabilizing to developing nerve circuitry and undermines nerve health and future stress tolerance. Instability between mother and father is also highly immune suppressive to your baby -- often preceding an infection.

Ensuring that digestion and immunity evolve correctly, as mentioned in the previous section, is also vital for healthy brain development. An overgrowth of hostile bacteria or yeast produces waste products that re-enter the general circulation, easily cross the blood brain barrier, and disturb nerve development. One's baby is also more at risk for acute infections, which are also nerve toxic -- as are the antibiotics used to treat them. Too much toxic trash simply gets in the way of healthy nerve development.

Along with DHA one of the very best nutrients for mental performance is phosphatidyl serine. It excels in support of memory, coordination, and nerve tolerance. It is one more stress management tool that can significantly optimize nerve health. It helps link DHA into cell membranes in the most electrically active manner.