To think midwives shouldn't give outdated advice?

[SamanthaBrique]

A friend of mine is about 4 months pregnant and her midwife has told her she shouldn't dye her hair or eat sushi during her pregnancy. At which point my friend told her that she's done both recently and her the midwife was not happy! When she told her partner later, he went ballistic, saying she was risking their unborn child by doing these things.

However, current NHS advice says it's fine to both eat sushi (for the most part) and dye your hair, so why is the midwife giving contradicting information? I told her she should complain but I doubt she will. I'm not too comfortable with her partner's reaction either tbh...

No they shouldn't, but when midwifery is understaffed and underfunded it's not surprising refresher training is compromised.

Its not the end of the world. Not as if she told her to do something dangerous. But yes her partners reaction if he did go ballastic is worrying.

And to be honest government food advice changes so often its hard to keep up.

I think 'for the most part' is key here.

Depending on how the MW worded it (and remember you've heard this secondhand), it might not have been that outdated.

The NHS advises caution.

The worst one is still some midwifes believe the 10 kicks a day.
I had my last child last year and I was still being told this which is just not true and can be very dangerous.

Dyeing hair depends on the hair and the dye. Asian hair often needs to be bleached aggressively to be dyed - doubt that's particularly healthy & in India and China the advice to many mums is to stop dyeing while pregnant.

The husband can fuck off if he 'goes ballistic' at his wife for dying her hair. What a prince.

It very much depends on how the MW worded it. As you have said yourself sushi is ok (for the most part) so it is entirely possible the MW said "some sushi isn't recommended in pregnancy" and "to be cautious dying hair in pregnancy as it can have an adverse reaction"

Or possibly an anxious first time dad, who has taken the Midwife's word literally?

I suppose it depends on what's meant by ballistic really, as it seems to mean different things to different people.

I discovered fantastic book called "Expected Better" which was a statistical look at various aspects of pregnancy particularly the food warnings given out to pregnant women. The author was an economist and used to weighing up risk. When pregnant she questioned the advice "but why shouldn't I eat x?" "What's the issue with it?" she found the midwives couldn't tell her why but just that it's "not advised". So she did her own research and statistical analysis and has found out the relative risks for different foods. She does give her own view on safety of things but the only thing she said was an absolute certain unsafe thing to do was to smoke during pregnancy.

I did question the advice not to eat soft eggs (my favourite) and was told it was due to the dangers of salmonella. But all UK hens are vaccinated against salmonella so the advise is outdated!

I remember questioning some of the food advice too... At the time, one of the bits of advice was regarding not eating soft cheese or similar due to the risk of listeria.

looked into it, very few examples of soft cheese causing listeria (at least in the UK, where I was) and the most recent outbreak had been caused by lettuce. Was there any advice about not eating lettuce? No.

Have just googled to double check that I was remembering correctly about the lettuce and stumbled across this article which is a full on rant about this very subject, as well as caffeine, alcohol, and more...

www.theguardian.com/society/2007/may/29/health.medicineandhealth

They are about the change the egg advice www.bbc.com/news/health-36888285. The stats book sounds interesting - I did a lot of reading around advice when I was pregnant (am a scientist by profession and like to know why!). 'What not to expect when you are expecting' by Zoe Williams had a chapter on similar lines. Midwives and other health professionals do sometimes give outdated advice so good to check (I'm not saying don't listen to your midwife just advice changes and due to time pressure guess is hard to keep up sometimes). Having said that I think hair dye has been considered safe for a long time.

Your friend just needs to use her common sense.
Some NHS advice is outdated , but it's just advice , do your own research.
What really concerns me about your post is her partner going' ballistic ', that bodes well for all the challenges a new baby brings.
He needs to calm the fuck down.

She said the midwife took a stern tone and spoke to her like she was a child who'd misbehaved, so it wasn't just like she was telling her it might not be a good idea.

And "going ballistic" were her words not mine, and I agree that behaviour is not on. Being a "anxious first time dad" is no excuse for shouting at your partner.

Unless your friend is vulnerable she can do what she wants with this advice.
To be honest some sushi might be risky and no one has run a trial on hair dye in pregnancy so it is just the midwife being cautious.
It wasn't bad advice, just old fashioned.

My health visitor at our 2 year check told me that I didn't need to be breastfeeding anymore because it had no nutritional value to her. And that she shouldn't still be sleeping in our bed as it's dangerous.

They are ridiculous sometimes!

Nah this advice has been contradicted for a long time. Sounds like she's an 'old school' community midwife who needs some updating.

Unfortunately if you don't make a real effort to keep updated with the changing advice you do miss things like that. Although this has been outdated for so long there's not really an excuse!

A lot of the food advice is just daft. Basically: unless there's something inherent in it that could cause problems (like vit A in liver if you're binge eating paté for instance) then the main issue with most of the 'avoid' foods is to not get food poisoning. That's why they used to say no eggs, mayo, soft cheese etc. Most shop bought dairy and raw egg products are now so pasteurised there's very little chance of getting food poisioning from it; you just need to watch places like restaurants who make their own sauces and things - some friends of mine got nasty food poisioning recently from a restaurant home-made cheesecake!

It's so counterproductive telling people just a blanket 'don't do these things' without looking at it critically and saying why. Because people just go 'well that's daft, I'll never eat anything' and ignore all the advice rather than taking away the bits that actually are important.

I'd be more concerned/pissed off with her partner's response to be honest...

She does give her own view on safety of things but the only thing she said was an absolute certain unsafe thing to do was to smoke during pregnancy

What does the book say about drinking alcohol to excess? Surely that's certainly unsafe?

Think of the number of people you've worked with who were a bit crap at their jobs.
Now apply that proportion to other professions. That how this happens.

*that's

That's why they used to say no eggs, mayo, soft cheese etc.

Not quite - most bugs which give you food poisoning are unlikely to harm the foetus (e.g. campylobacter) but some bugs have a proven link with miscarriage or stillbirth, specifically listeria and toxoplasmosis. Pâté is a listeria risk as well as being high in vitamin A if it's made from liver, and undercooked or cured meat can be a toxo risk. Mould-ripened soft cheese like brie is a toxo risk even if it is pasteurised because the moist rind is the perfect low-acidity environment to breed listeria. Equally, hard cheese like cheddar and stilton is safe even if made with unpasteurised milk.

OP, you're right that sushi is OK in moderation but make sure that your friend knows to limit her consumption of tuna (due to mercury levels) and oily fish. No shark, swordfish or marlin at all. The NHS guidance is very sensible.

It's a shame when people aren't happy with their free at the point of access service that the NHS provides. It may be out of date advice but no harm has been done. We are surely all aware of the barriers that overstretched services face.

Yeah I wasn't going into the very specifics about all the different sorts of food poisionings you can get on a mumsnet post that wasn't about that... my point was that there's nothing inherently in most of those things that will harm a fetus (except the vit A in pate/liver, mercury in swordfish etc) but the problem lies IF you get food poisoning and IF you get the very specific sort of food poisioning.

Not because eating mayo is going to harm your baby.

There is a deeper concern though Cathy that if she's not up to date about this, what else is the midwife 'old school' about? That could in fact cause harm?