Having food/drink policed whilst pregnant

[ForTheSakeOfFuck]

About three weeks ago, buying a full English takeout for OH...
Cook: "How do you want your eggs?"
Me: "Runny please."
Cook: "Ooooh... you know you shouldn't have runny eggs whilst pregnant. I'll fry it till it's hard." vanishes back into kitchen before I can stop her

Last week, in a pub garden with me, SIL, and OH...
Waiting staff: "What drinks do you want?"
Me: "Two white wines and a coke please."
waiting person returns with drinks
Waiting staff, trying to figure out who to give the drinks to, obviously concludes the wines are for me and SIL: "Ummm... did you want something else? I mean because... you know..."
Me: slightly confused stare since I hadn't twigged yet
Waiting staff: "Is the wine for you?"
Me: "No. It's for MIL else who's arriving imminently. I have a bottle of water in my bag."
Waiting staff: "Oh phew! For a minute there I thought you were going to drink whilst pregnant!" chuckles her way back inside

Today, in Spar, buying my lunch, along with three high-protein peanut bar snack things which actually, for once, are for me, and I've checked with the obstetrician that it's okay for me to eat these since I'm otherwise low on protein in my diet...
Checkout woman, looking at me, very deliberately at my bump, and then at the nutritional content on the bars, literally reading the guidance on there: "Are you allowed to eat these?? I don't think these are okay during pregnancy."
Me in a pretty flat, unimpressed voice: "Are you an obstetrician?"
Checkout woman: "... A what?"
Me: "A specialist in fetal development."
Checkout woman: "... Er... no...?"
awkward silence whilst she scans, I pay, and leave

Sat here, now, chomping on a maple and peanut bar, I feel like a bit of an arsehole in retrospect. So... WIBU to get a bit shirty with the checkout woman?

My FIL asked in a very shocked voice whether I was allowed to have wine when I ordered it in a restaurant. I don't think half a glass of prosecco on Mother's Day was going to do anything too awful. Didn't tell him that I definitely shouldn't be eating the goat's cheese in my salad.

Oh and I had a colleague tell me off for eating sushi. It was vegetarian sushi.

I had one comment during pregnancy about the lovely rare steak i was tucking into... My friend soon shut up when i asked her if i was to avoid getting in a car for 9 months since i was more likely to get in a car accident than get poorly from the steak.

The annoying thing is that the advice changes so often. In my first pregnancy it was "no peanuts, your child will get a peanut allergy" in my second it was "eat peanuts to stop your child getting a peanut allergy" so confusing when all you want is a snickers bar and some bombay mix in a bowl together

I was sick of this when I was pregnant. I wanted to shout "I'm going to eat it, not shove it up my foof"!

This has never happened to me through my two pregnancies. Seems I've been very lucky

Same here with 3 pregnancies.

I must have a 'fuck off' face.

When I was first pregnant (many, many moons ago) I had terrible trouble sleeping and was in tears at the GP's -- my lovely, hippy-ish/alternative doctor suggested I have a small whisky at night to help me sleep.....
He'd probably be struck off nowadays

@Creamcheez. I think NHS advice is that you should only have 200mg of caffeine a day. One cup of tea a day is fine.
I used to remember it as I can have up to 2 caffeinated things a day so a cup of coffee (normal home coffee) in the morning and then either a coke/a tea/or a chocolate bar.

I can understand some rules in other countries where food hygiene standards may be shit differ but runny eggs are fine in the U.K. Thanks to our vaccinated chickens/lion stamped eggs. Cold meats are fine! Fish is fine! And as long as McDonalds washes it's ice cream machine properly, which they have to these days, they're not a problem either.

My (then) pregnant friend in the US had some subway kid heat up her cold meat sub, contrary to what she had requested. Personally I would loudly ask them if Subway's hygiene standards are lacking in some way and should they perhaps be heating the meat for all customers due to the high risk of Listeria there. I'd maybe even warn the customers around me that they apparently have listeria there.

I drank coffee and tea through all my pregnancies. Coca Cola too. No one said shit to me. I must have one of those faces. 😂

I was semi-lucky. I had someone get quite angry with me when I drank coke at a party because of the caffeine, then another time I had a sip of DH's wine at a BBQ and got an approving comment about women who are relaxed in their approach.

That told me mainly that pg woman are being observed no matter what they are doing!

I'm really learning to keep my gob shut. Don't get me wrong, I'd never have critisied anyone for choosing to have a drink/coffee etc but I'm occasionally tempted to say 'oh did you know lion stamped eggs are ok?' when pregnant friends are complaining about not being allowed them.

It really is personal choice and I'd never want to imply that I was better informed or a better judge of someone's situation than they are themselves. It's very offensive.

Omg out at midnight evil I must of have been satan used to get the ex to walk with me n the dog to Tesco in town for chocolate 🍫 lmao

Having said that if a friend is genuinely unsure and asks advice I'll happily help with my opinion (but am careful to frame that it is just my opinion) and have recommended the Emily Oster book a couple of times as I found it helpful when I was pregnant.

I have the opposite from PIL and my family, who are very much of the opinion that I should be eating whatever I want and drinking whatever I want including plenty of caffeine and wine i have gestational diabetes and they seem to think if I won't take white bread and buns i'm just being fussy 😂

Thanks, Camomila! I'm new to this, BFP on Friday. So I'm sure my little dot has come to no harm, so far... (I'll be having left-over chocolate cake from that party for lunch today!). But, I'll have a gander at the official guidelines now. I like allsorts of food, so I should be fine (until sickness sets in & I won't want any sort of food!).

I ordered a prawn & something or other pasta dish when I was around 6 months pregnant, and when it arrived there were no prawns in it. Apparently the waitress had taken it upon herself to tell the chef not to put prawns (cooked prawns obviously) in it but didn't inform me of this management decision. I was gobsmacked!

Love your response to the checkout person OP!

God, I'm glad mine are older teenagers. I would probably have lumped somebody, which is always classy in pregnancy. The only comment I got was one from the midwife who told me not to breastfeed if I'd drunk enough to see two babies instead of one. I always follow medical advice so I was very strict with this one.

I think I must have a fuck off face too. I've never had a comment about food/drink when pregnant or any comments when breast feeding. Practice your resting bitch face ladies

Those of you who've been served prawnless prawns, beef and eggs deliberately not cooked as ordered etc, did you refuse to pay? You should've!

I hate it. My youngest is five now and I'm very grateful I'll not have to face this again. It makes me incredibly angry, it's all very Handmaids Tale...

they probably couldn't understand why you would have a drink from home for yourself in your bag.

Peanuts are fine. Nuts are fine. Sushi is fine. Sashimi is fine (the freezing process kills the bacteria). Runny eggs are fine. Soft cheeses are fine. Pate is fine. The list goes on...

Most of the rubbish spouted is from American influence now. All of these things are fine in the UK unless you're licking them when they're raw and then face hugging the bum of a chicken.

Coffee and alcohol though... no. Sorry. I find it bizarre that anyone can't just 'not' drink for 9 months. If you find it so hard to avoid wine or beer during the stage your baby's brain is developing, even as a 'treat', then you have other issues.

Caffeine over stimulates their heart and yours in the same way too much sugar does. It was never really an issue with instant coffee being the most popular in the UK but not with energy drinks and fresh brew being so popular they have to advise against it.

you get Shedlads of unwanted advice which you largely have to ignore whilst writing cunt on the roof of your mouth with your tongue...

Was it just me who imagined doing this this mouth open while listening to the instructions? ! Teeth showing and tongue moving with a furrowed brow while concentrating on forming letters right?? That woukd be hilarious and encorse the advice giver to slowly back away whist fearing for their lives.. perfect

I didn't think pate was fine though. Liver pate as high in vit a and other ones because of how they're made and kept means high risk of certain bacteira? Runny eggs fine though they say now.. has changed from my last pregnancy

One wonders how these judgey fuckers deal with the circumferentially challenged.

Sorry, no sugar for you, fatty fat fat.

Sooo not having that muffin, you muffin-waisted, muffin thing.

Tell them to fuck off , OP.

Things are different all over though- a friend of mine is in Australia and she was pg at the same time as me- she was told to avoid all deli meats- so cold chickens, cold hams etc. She was also told to avoid chocolate because of the caffeine. I personally don't like or eat chocolate, but I did chuckle at the idea of telling pg women not to avoid chocolate!!

Anyway, in the middle of my pg the guidelines on peanuts changed completely.

On the bf front, I was never ever told to avoid booze while breastfeeding. In fact, I had a bad bleed after birth and the midwife told me to drink a large glass of red wine at every meal (including breakfast!) to help the blood. This was in the UK, 7 years ago.