A coalition of U.S. experts backed by the fish industry said Thursday that pregnant and breast-feeding women should eat at least 12 ounces of fish and other seafood a week to improve their babies’ health, contrary to U.S. government warnings.

The debate over how much fish pregnant and breast-feeding women should consume and whether the potential benefits for infant brain development outweigh or are outweighed by the risk of mercury contamination continues.

A group of 14 obstetricians and nutritionists questioned governmental warnings that these categories of women should eat less than 12 ounces of fish and other seafood a week due to risks involving traces of mercury in the fish.

While omega-3 fatty acids contained in the fish are vital for fetal nervous system development, mercury poisoning can harm the nervous system of fetuses, thus the contradictions between experts.

The group recommending fish is supported by the Maternal Nutrition Group and the National Healthy Mothers, Healthy Babies Coalition, whose members include a division of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the Agriculture Department, the March of Dimes, the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists and others.

Representatives of the Maternal Nutrition Group said it received $60,000 in grants from the National Fisheries Institute, a seafood industry group, to promote these recommendations, reports Bloomberg.

The experts said women are not eating fish anymore, in an effort to avoid mercury poisoning, and are instead depriving their babies of essential nutrients found in fish and seafood that are important for brain and motor skill development in children. The nutrients in question can help prevent postpartum depression in mothers, according to Reuters.

The group specifically criticizes a March 2004 jointly issued advisory from the Environmental Protection Agency and the Food and Drug Administration, that urges young children and women who are breastfeeding, pregnant, or who could become pregnant to consume no more than 12 ounces of fish a week.

There was also the recommendation to avoid shark, marlin and oily fish such as salmon, mackerel, herring and trout.

Instead, the group says women who want to become pregnant, are pregnant or are breastfeeding should eat a minimum of 12 ounces per week of fish (such as salmon, tuna, sardines, mackerel) and seafood (like shrimp, lobster and clams).

“There are some fish that have been shown to be higher in mercury and in other important trace elements such as shark and swordfish,” one of the experts, Dr. Ashley Roman, a professor of obstetrics and Gynecology at New York University Medical Center, said, as quoted by Reuters.

“Those might be sources of fish women still might want to stay away from. But the vast majority of fish out there present in the U.S. diet, those are generally very healthy fishes.”

The experts backed their recommendation of more than 12 ounces of fish per week for pregnant/breastfeeding women by citing a British study that appeared in medical journal The Lancet this February.

The British study showed that children whose mothers ate fish and other seafood during pregnancy were more advanced in development tests measuring motor, communication and social skills, had better verbal IQ scores and were better behaved, than children whose mothers had avoided fish during pregnancy.

Less than 12 ounces, more than 12 ounces… there is bound to be confusion among women who wish to become pregnant or are pregnant or breastfeeding. What is apparent however is that there is no ban against consuming fish – there should be care to choose fish low in mercury and to not eat “21 meals a week of fish,” as group member Thomas Brenna, a Cornell University nutritionist, was quoted by Reuters as saying.