to think this new advice to pregnant women is ridiculous

[ArtemisatBrauron]

ok, so apparently due to a "small and unmeasurable" and completely unspecified "risk", pregnant women are not allowed to eat any food wrapped in plastic (that would be almost everything then, most supermarkets even wrap fresh fruit and veg in plastic), use cosmetics or moisturiser, or travel in new cars, purchase new furniture etc.

Considering that most baby bottles are plastic and you can get baby food in plastic pouches etc this strikes me as waaaay over-protective.

Opinions?

Based on this advice, I think I'll dig myself a nice comfy hole at the beginning of my next pregnancy, live on juicy beetles and emerge after 9 months. That's surely the safest option.

salivates at the memory of the seafood-saturated pregnant trip to Bordeaux last summer

They'd better start building pregnant women little lentil weaver hermit huts with their own organic food supply then.

How on earth are normal, working women going to avoid any of these chemicals?

What a stupid scaremongering piece of advice. I can imagine how this will affect women who have mc'd too. They'll blame themselves for using bloody shower gel or eating a cucumber. :(.

It is remarkable that the human race has survived this long

This isn't anything new.

Completely agree fakebook. Sounds daft now but after having an ectopic for a while I convinced myself it was due to drinking a large mug of jasmine tea. Tour mind is everywhere after a pregnancy loss.

I have to admit I have been cautious about 'new smells' this pregnancy and I also made DH paint the nursery rather than expose me, bump or DD. And I also agree about the manufacturers needing to be the ones who are forced to change rather than make parents feel solely responsible.

I also bloody wish they'd put the same amount of research funding into stillbirths and overstretched maternity services and in particularly the implementation of a third scan in late pregnancy, yes I know I witter on about this but the more awareness the better

Agree with queenofholly. And if certain chemicals are known to cause a risk to anyone, why aren't they removed? This non-specific, vague 'you may want to' type warning is useless. Alarmist & unhelpful. And the assertion that organic = better is not scientifically proven although tbf likely true so not any better than the list of 'do nots'.

Just been reading the very same article in the Independent. It's bonkers! Why not just prescribe a non-plastic bubble for 9 months?

Is this not much the same as twisting stats from the breaking SIDS news a few weeks ago.

Do not get medical advice from the media get it from a qualified medical practitioner

Good point fakebook - RCOG needs to be more careful before giving out advice like this - they haven't said how women are supposed to get a balanced and healthy diet while avoiding every food known to man either, and the negative effect of stress and worry on pg women who are worried about all this is probably worse than the miniscule "risk" of the chemicals anyway.
All of this comes down to making women fee guilty when in all reality it is the manufacturers who put all these foods etc in plastics - if these things aren't safe then why are they allowed to sell them? Why are baby bottles made of plastic?!

Blimey, that's comprehensive!

Personally speaking I think we have spawned a plethora of chemicals for our food and other items. Certainly if miscarriages occurred in the animal kingdom (and especially in the farm animals) in the same rate they do in humans then there would be much more study about why.

As humans we have a very high rate of miscarriages and I do wonder how much of that is cased by an over exposure to pesticides and other chemicals. Having had miscarriages myself I cannot help but wonder why.

On the other hand they are almost impossible to avoid and I doubt this "advice" is going to change anything. Some of it is just plain good advice, eat fresh rather than processed food etc. How can you avoid plastic containers though?

At 25+2, this is one piece of advice I shall soundly ignore!

But if this prompts pregnant women to avoid sunscreen, I will be very annoyed.

How about they stop using this thing in everything instead of further passing the buck to pregnant people.

Oh they don't know what it is.

Bollocks.

What an incredibly unhelpful list. More things to worry about, yay.

It's bad enough that the list of proscribed food/medication isn't risk based - it's all lumped together as 'bad' from 'caused some worrying results in a study of 12 pregnant rats that was conducted 20 years ago' or '1 in 100000 chance of salmonella poisoning' to '100% known to cause horrible birth defects' or 'is an abortifacient'.

Which means no one can make any kind of sensible informed decisions. We're pregnant, we're not idiots. And now they're adding chemicals in a similar vein.

I'm all for better awareness of the quite toxic chemicals that can sneak into a home environment, but for the love of god can science/the media please give us the risk factors and evidence as well?

Anyone order a side fish of anxiety to go with their breakfast this morning?

Honestly, I don't think this report is ready for publication. There's nothing in there to hold on to - too many "mights" to base any actual lifestyle changes.

I think most women are sensible during pregnancy - they try to improve their diet, reduce exposure to chemicals etc. I've recently asked dh to take over bathroom cleaning and he's now in charge of weed killer.

Other than moving into the lentil weaver's hut as suggested any a pp, what else can we realistically do?!

I heard it on the radio this morning and thought what a pile of scaremongering crap. No tinned food or ready meals either. Well I think people have been eating those for a long time. I assume the furniture and new cars/ paint stuff is about VOCs and would also include carpets?

The point being, unless extensive research is done on all these things and everything else we come into contact with then no-one will ever know if they are ok or not. I'm sure the vast majority of people were exposed to some if not all of the things on this list and have gone on to have healthy babies. We need to take risk management to a level that doesn't send people into a state of panic so, until they are more than a potential risk, these lists are unhelpful in the extreme. In the meantime I feel very sorry for all the women who will be blaming themselves for anything that happens during their pregnancy.

Jakebullet.. It's worth remembering that farm animals have been domesticated & selectively bred for many many generations to improve their genetics particularly in the case of reproduction. My OH (a beef farmer) would not breed from a cow that had miscarriages.

Pours another vodka, lights a cig and strokes bump......

What's all this then?

More stuff to be paranoid and worried about. Just dyed my hair last night and put sunscreen on DH before he set off for work. Me and the unborn are doomed.

I'm bracing myself for the phone calls from relatives who have read this.

How awful for pregnant ladies, this scaremongering is incredibly unfair. I hope they all take it for what it's worth, utter crap. As if being prgenant isn't hard enough already without thinking that you're constantly damaging your baby just from eating something that's been near plastic. And all the new mums are now wondering what effect this has had on their newborns. Complete madness.

Well I'm buggered then. 38+3 and have been doing a lot of those things. And eating runny eggs. Whoops.

englishteacher there are actually a lot of nasties in some nail polishes. Some brands are better than others - list. If you have big-3 free or big-5 free polishes, much better. My midwife said it's fine from time to time but regular use isn't recommended.

Sounds as useful as a warning I read on a bakery wrapping recently. "warning, this product contains or may contain allergens"

Live with moderation, apply common sense and you'll be fine.

PS, common sense dictated that a custard doughnut was not compatible with DS's milk and egg allergy.

A lot of baby products are labelled as BPA free.
Wouldn't a return to loose produce also help reduce the 1/3 of food in this country being wasted as you could then buy the appropriate quanity for your needs.

I think the RCOG must have lost their collective mind. As reported this paper is so wet and unclear.

Do you know what I really resent though - just read the piece in the Independent and thought 'oh bloody hell this must be what I did wrong and that's why dd2 was born with a congenital heart defect'. I will give myself a slap but still