Did you eat ‘forbidden foods’ in pregnancy?

[Wouldloveanother]

After 2 weeks of horrendous morning (all day) sickness and accompanying gastro problems, I NEEDED a smoked salmon and cream cheese sandwich. Bought one from Tesco, it went down a treat, currently smacking my lips and feeling better than I have for a day or two.

But… the NHS website says to be ‘careful’ with smoked salmon. Surely Tesco sandwiches are pretty safe? Have I committed a pregnancy crime?

Smoked salmon was ok until the issue with an outbreak of listeria was identified recently linked to smoked fish

Othe people have said French women also have guidelines around foods that should be avoided during pregnancy

Just wanted to say, real D.P.O. Parma Ham (look for the crown mark) is actually safe to eat, provided it's industrially packaged and eaten before it's BB date. It gets preserved for 3 months between 0 and 4 degrees, then salted and matured for at least 18 months. This process kills toxoplasma, so no risks there.
I was so happy to find out this, as I'd been craving it badly!

I really craved blue cheese when I was pregnant so made blue cheese pizza which was delish.

The ever changing guidelines do seem ridiculous especially when you look at the guidance in other countries.

In India the guidance is to avoid refined white flour, so no bread, pasta or pizza. Can imagine there's sanctimonious pregnant women saying 'how could you risk the life of your child for a mouthful of pizza?!'

I'm sure Indonesia recommends pregnant women don't drink fizzy water.

I'm 24 weeks pregnant. I've eaten shop bought sushi a handful of times guiltily, but not fresh restaurant sushi. I also had one day where I said FI and ate a whole pack of duck pate.
But I've avoided raw seafood mainly and smoked meats. I couldn't cope with the anxiety.

Do you not understand guidelines are different due to differing food safety standard across other countries?

@IWillBeWaxingAnOwl

some would be funny about the scallops and nuts

it sounds lovely though, i would eat it!

You can get listeria from
pre-prepared sandwiches and salads
and some pre-prepared fruit, including melon slices

Sushi in the UK is fine as its flash frozen which kills the parasites. Even in restaurants it's okay as food safety laws requires raw fish sushi to be frozen for 24 hours before its served. The only thing you need to be careful with is raw shellfish sushi 😁

It wasn't banned for my first two, but it was by my third, I've never enjoyed brie with crusty bread as I did when I brought my daughter home.

Pregnancy 1 advice from midwife - avoid peanuts to stop risk of allergies.

Pregnancy 2 advice ( 3 years later and SAME midwife) make sure you eat peanuts - good food for pregnancy may reduce risk of allergy in unborn child (yup opposite advice)

So i concluded they just make it up based on the latest hunch and there is very little evidence. I actually looked up what the food with the highest risk of listeria was in the uk. At the time it was hospital food!

www.gov.uk/government/publications/listeria-monocytogenes-incident-report

My brother had a violent cows milk allergy. When I mentioned this during my pregnancy, I was told by more than one doctor that I should avoid cow's milk and dairy while breast feeding, and ON NO ACCOUNT should even a drop of milk.or milk product enter my baby's mouth until she was a full year old. Of course that was really hard work, because family members would forget and move to give her a lick of their ice cream or something and we'd have to yell at them to STOP!!! Which made me feel awful. And getting cow's milk alternatives back then was way harder than now.

Fast forward a few years, and allergy advice is the polar opposite. That children with a family history of serous allergies should come across the allergen as soon as possible. Sooner than your average baby.

Basically none of us can do right for doing wrong.

Yes, because the rules then and now are different. We used to be hassled by midwives to eat liver!

Exactly the example I was thinking of. None of it is set in stone. I hate it when people hear a rule and militantly adopt it without researching or understanding why.

No I didn't but I was 17 when I found out I was pregnant and had many people judging me already. I didn't want to make any mistakes for people to judge me even further. If I was pregnant now at 32 I'd be less concerned!

I just ate whatever I wanted to
my youngest is a teenager now so maybe things have changed - can’t remember any food being ‘banned’

My DC is 14 and from what I remember there was advice against things like nuts, shellfish and unpasteurised milk/soft cheese.

I am very risk adverse. I have had multiple miscarriages. To the point that I gave up on having children.

Throughout those, I religiously followed medical advice on what to do and not to do, and what to eat and not to eat.

Then my miracle pregnancy happened. I was under consultant care. I mentioned how much I missed sushi to the obstetrician. He told me to eat it and anything else I fancied (in moderation). His exact words were ‘If I tell you to stop eating that, I would have to tell you to stop crossing the road, as, statistically, that is a bigger risk to you’.

The only thing I avoided after that was canteloupe as there seemed to have been recent regular outbreaks of listeria in canteloupe at the time.

No food is "banned" now. Its just advised not to eat a very small number of things.

The hyperbole here is too much what do people think will actually happen if you eat these foods? That you will be reported to the police?

And yes these guidelines have absolutely been in place for many many years, my brother is 20 and i very much remember my mom following certain guidelines and discounting ones she didnt feel were risky enough to follow.

Honest to god with the exception of smoking and drinking no one gives a shit what pregnant women consume, most people would have absolutely no idea.

@nutellachurro you have been forcibly reminding everyone that food standards different between countries - yes there is some element of that (but actually how much difference is there across say the EU bloc that nevertheless seems to end up in different national medical recommendations - I’m sceptical).

However, how does that explain very different recommendations on issues like caffeine where women are given very different advice - or are you going to argue that coffee/ chocolate/ tea works differently in different countries??

i feel it’s like the recommendations about when to start solids (4/ 6 months etc) or indeed Covid measures - there are a lot of cultural issues and attitudes to risk at play and to say “it’s just science” is not very accurate.

I have had a portion of pâté, the odd bit of soft cheese, and probably other things rarely. I've also had coffee and tea regularly, and I would have had a glass or two wine on occasion, but pregnancy made it taste like gasoline to me.

I didn't have anything the NHS advises against in the first trimester, but after 12 weeks, I pretty much eat normally (but way more than usual).

No I didn't. The only thing I missed was scallops. I avoided fizzy drinks and coffee too but tbh I very rarely drink them anyway.

I ate lots of smoked salmon, cods roe, shop sushi, rare steak, rare cooked salmon, small amounts of chopped liver, the odd small glass of wine.

Hardly forcibly

Merely correcting those saying it's bullshit because other countries have different rules

And the rules around caffeine are pretty similar across countries and continents. The main studies info caffeine show a 300mg limit per day is reasonable, the NHS guidance goes one further for 200mg as this is known to be safe. It gets fuzzy between 200-300mg.

And do you honestly not understand how socioeconomic factors impact the guidance on moving to solids? In poorer countries especially, children need to move to solids as early as possible to avoid malnutrition, it's still not ideal for them and their digestion but it's the better option.

You seem mighty ignorant

This doesn’t relate to your main point @nutellachurro but when you say, “In poorer countries especially, children need to move to solids as early as possible to avoid malnutrition, it's still not ideal for them and their digestion but it's the better option”, that’s actually the complete opposite of what public health advice is in developing world countries.

In poorer countries it’s strongly recommended by the WHO and the WFO and UNICEF and most national governments that children are breastfed exclusively until at least six months, and then continue to be given breast milk as their main drink for a very long time. Specifically because moving them into solids too early or giving them drinks other than breast milk (including formula) carries a much higher risk that they will get food poisoning, bacteria, viruses and water borne illnesses, in countries where sanitation and water provision is poorer and people still practice open defecation. Having a lot of tummy upsets in early childhood is actually the leading cause of malnutrition and stunting, because if you can’t keep nutrients in your system because you’re constantly ill then that is what happens. Diarrhoea is also the leading cause of death for children under five in the developing world.

This is why the breastfeeding is best narrative (which is also true for the developed world, but is less crucial) is pushed so very heavily in the developing world and why formula companies that try to market products there are so frowned upon.

Moving children in the developing world to solids earlier, or giving them formula instead of breast milk, is actually much more likely to give them malnutrition or kill them.

I’m struggling to see how salmon and cream cheese would be your “go to” after being sick! But horses for courses…

I didn’t eat “banned” food, no. I was worried about listeria, and I think the health advice is there for a reason.

I’m sure on odd occasions a smoked salmon sandwich is fine, so I voted YANBU, but on the general principle- no, don’t eat the “inadvisable” foods.