DHA and ARA.

New parents and parents-to-be will be hearing a lot about these initials.

They’re fatty acids found naturally in breast milk DHA for docosahexaenoic acid and ARA for arachidonic acid (also referred to as AA) and they’ll be appearing in baby formula for the first time in the United States this year. Mead Johnson Nutritionals is introducing these nutrients to Enfamil LIPIL, and other companies are sure to follow.

This is quite a milestone in making formula more like mother’s milk, advocates say. These fatty acids, which belong to the group of omega-3 fatty acids found in cold-water fish like salmon and sardines, have been found in studies to enhance the neurological and visual development of children who are not breast-fed.

Supporters say the nutrients which are derived from marine algae will be particularly helpful for premature infants who cannot convert other dietary fats into these two fatty acids.

“I’ve been excited about these nutrients for years,” said Dr. Alan Greene, the savvy Stanford University pediatrician who launched the first pediatric Web site on the Internet in 1995. He’s touting the added nutrients for Mead Johnson.

Investigators started studying the molecule a decade ago after it was discovered that high concentrations of DHA are found in the retinas and brains of breast-fed infants.

After positive results were found in monkeys fed DHA-supplemented formula, researchers found in a study of 44 infants that babies fed the enhanced formula performed significantly better than those drinking regular formula on a series of problem-solving tests that involved finding and retrieving a toy.

Research at the Retina Foundation of the Southwest in Dallas on 108 infants found that electrical measures of the infants’ visual acuity were significantly enhanced in those fed DHA-supplemented formula. This improvement was repeated when the children were tested again at 18 months.

Greene, like most pediatricians, advocates breast milk as the first and best choice for infants. It has the mother’s antibodies that can help protect her baby from infections, allergies and asthma, and breast milk has 160 fatty acids beyond DHA and ARA that are not found in formula. Breast-feeding mothers can also reduce their risk of ovarian and breast cancer and osteoporosis.

Despite a push by the American Academy of Pediatrics to get women to breast-feed for at least a year, latest statistics show that only 64 percent of American women breast-feed during an infant’s first weeks of life, and less than half of those 29 percent at six months.

So formula with DHA and ARA could be the next best thing.

“It’s one step in the right direction,” said Dr. Carol Gilmour, a neonatologist at Children’s and Magee-Womens hospitals who sees a particular advantage for premature infants and newborns.

“If I had to buy formula for a young infant, and I had the option of formula supplemented with DHA or not, I’d pick the one with DHA.” She wasn’t sure, however, how beneficial the additives would be for children beyond 3 to 6 months.