to be eating copious amounts of Danish Blue cheese on crusty bread whilst being pregnant?

[kidcreoleandthecoconuts]

And I'm enjoying it....yum!

[Faifly]

sorry if i'm repeating what's already been said coz of course I can't be bothered reading the whole 21 pages of this thread The problem with guidelines is that they tend to change over time - for instance a few decades ago breastfed babies were routinely given water before weaning, where now giving a healthy b/f baby anything but the breast is a no-no.
Likewise, my gran's generation were told to stick to routine feeding, then the advice changed towards feeding on demand, now all of my parenting books say the 4-hourly feeding routine was based on research on bottle-fed babies and is totally wrong for b/f ones, yet my midwife kept going on about "feed him every 3-4 hours".
I recently stumbled upon a scientific publication which suggests supplementation with folates and vitamin B12 may markedly increase the risk of asthma in offspring, both in families with a history of asthma and those without. The authors argue that the rise in asthma in children in the past few decades could be due to pregnant women being given nuclear doses of folic acid but say that risk of asthma has to be weighed against the dangers of folate deficiency. Now this line of research is very recent and ongoing so hasn't yet fed into any guidelines.
Many of these guidelines seem to be politically/socially motivated as well, e.g. I really do think the medical community okaying an "occasional" drink or fag has more to do with the fact that they don't want to alienate the majority of their patients than with some supposedly recently discovered benefits of "occasional" drinking for foetal development.
Wouldn't it be SAFER and EASIER tho to follow those guidelines that are in place at this moment in time rather than hope they may change at some point.
Also I do agree with the folks here who say risk of DEATH from listeria, however small, is worse than the risk of say one glass of wine on your birthday (tho having a b/day every other day while pg is prob not the best idea )
As for the brits being very relaxed it's very true, I have family in Russia and the restrictions on what pregnant and breastfeeding women can and can't eat are unreal over there. While over here even chocolate is ok even tho cocoa is known to be one of the strongest allergens ever.
On the whole I think going with your gut feeling is fine so long as it doesn't involve the risk of death or abnormalities. So I'd say play safe and be thankful we're still allowed chocolate here he-he (tho i personally switched to shortbread just to be on the safe side - and getting through 8-9 packs a week! )

[spicybingowings]

YABU - why take the risk? Would you ever forgive yourself if your baby died because you ate 'copious' amounts of blue cheese? Pregnant women are (apparently) 20 times more at risk of contracting listeriosis, and whilst the symptoms for you may be mild, you could kill your baby. I just don't understand why you would.

The guidelines around eating whilst pregnant have reduce mortality rates and the number of babies born with abnormalities. The risks of ignoring the guidelines may be small, but if you're one of the people impacted then the outcome is brutal and there is no going back.

[jujubean]

I was a bit 'la la la' about all the cheese advice when I was pg with DD1 then a friend's SIL lost a baby at 7mths pg because she got listeria off some cheese she had eaten. It was horrific, I was good as gold when I was pg with DD2. Not worth giving birth to a dead baby for a bit of brie IMHO.

[Habbibu]

skihorse - people in 3rd world countries have very high infant mortality rates, and grieve their losses just as we do. And as to the folic acid - my dd1 died as I didn't have enough folate, and it's likely that my two children would also not have made it, or been disabled if I hadn't taken enough. No, it doesn't matter to most people, but to find out too late that you are that 1 in 1000 is fucking brutal.

[Lotster]

Tinker, Barack, yes yes yes!!

This thread is becomong like Groundhog day Every time one of us explains that you quite simply, should not fuck with listeria and details why; someone comes along and says "yeah but a little bit can't hurt can it??! Not like I smoke woodbines isit? etc etc" aargh.

Now I wouldn't accuse people of not reading threads before adding but those very responses in the face of answers, show why the guidelines have to be drummed in...

[BarackObamasTransitVan]

A few days ago Libra pointed out (as have others) that these are guidleines and not rules, and that we'd be pretty angry if this information was witheld. Well it looks as if there was an outcry back in the 90s, when it transpired that the government of the time knew about the listeria risk in the 80s and chose to keep that information to themselves. I can't find the original Times article, but the Independent mention it here: Labour attacks silence over babies' deaths
As an aside, pasteurised/unpasteurised is a bit of a red herring - it's mould ripened cheese that carries a listeria risk, and mould ripened cheese can be made from pasteurised milk.

[mrsmarzipan]

I craved mince pies (sweet ones) during both my pregnancys to the extent i gave myself heartburn by the quantity i ate, MIL saw me eating one a couple of weeks ago in costa (i know, i have started early) and asked if there was something i wanted to tell her! (i'm not!)

Is a lump of cheese that could cause problems for your baby really worth it? try sweet mince pies i can highly recommend them! (and once xmas over with move on to hot crossed buns!)

[tinkerbellesmuse]

As I think I made clear I have eaten cheese during my pregnancy (and most supermarkets really do stock mostly pasturised cheese - anything that doesn't specifically state in big letters as per the law that it is unpasturised is pasturiased)

My point is this is the once case where "everything in moderation" DOES NOT APPLY. By all means take the risk but don't do so naively: if you do get Listeria the likely outcome is that your baby will die (even if you don't get sick yourself). There is no accumulative ill effect unlike smoking and drinking so there is a fair argument for saying you're safer having a packet of fags washed down with several vodkas a week than eating one round of unpasturised cheese sarnies.

[Longtalljosie]

In Australia they're really big on not having "deli-meat". My friend who lives there was talking about it and I had no idea what she was on about.

Starlight - Broccoli? What the heck's wrong with broccoli? I ate loads when pg, practically the only vegetable DH likes (he's a vegetarian who doesn't like most vegetables, my life is a trial... )

[Knownowt]

Re pregnancy in France and other countries in Europe, in my experience the guidelines are stricter, if anything. Toxoplasmosis immunity testing is the norm (and for those who aren't immune, monthly blood tests to check whether you've caught it). Not only are blue and mould-ripened cheeses avoided but also things like salad (listeria risk, apparently). I think there's a perception that Brits are unusually straight-laced about pregnancy guidelines- if anything, we're more relaxed than many other countries.

Re the OP, a bit unreasonable, yes. Obviously one can make one's own choices without giving others a right to criticise, but surely posting the question invites criticism?

[PartOfTheHumphreysGroup]

I do find the response to this thread quite strange (apart from the sensible ones which I agree with, of course)

OP asked an AIBU about something, had a few polite 'I think you are a bit' responses and an awful lot of 'wahey, no, me too' responses and yet there is mention of people being 'slaughtered', and a fair bit of anger about RULES imposed, sarcy comments about how babies ever survived before, etc. I think it was a fairly mild response, so why are people being so defensive?

Actually they are just guidelines, you don't have to follow them. You know, a bit like those guidelines that say you shouldn't wean before 6 months.. - AIBU to feed my 5 month old cheese - now that would garner a far more robust response, don't you think?
Risk of early weaning - possible food allergies? potential stomach problems?
Risk of listeriosis - possible end of pregnancy.

[thehappyprince]

Don't think you are BU, I think blanket rules are rarely good and everyone has to weigh up for themselves. Think a couple of the guidelines are interesting - last pregnancy the research came out about increased rates of peanut allergy in children following advice to avoid in pregnancy, the original research on which the guidance was based was only on pregnant women with family histories of peanut allergies. Don't think the advice has changed yet, but could be that all this avoidance is increasing the risk for the vast majority and not decreasing it. Also, with fish, a significant link was found with amount eaten in pregnancy (of any type including shellfish and oily fish) and verbal IQ of the child so could argue that the guidance (not to eat more than 2 portions of oily fish a week is it?) is actually leading to more problems (potential link with aspergers might be postulated I guess). I'm not saying I think all advice should be ignored, just that it is only that and threads like these always seem to end up with a few "no risk is acceptable" statements which seem to be designed to make whoever strays from it guilty which imho ibvu.

[SugarMagrundy]

My SIL runs a business that tests foodstuffs and she was amazed at the number of cheeses with dangerous levels of Listeria. Said if she'd known that back when she was pregnant with her kids, she would never have eaten any.

[brightpurplecow]

I've been really interested to read all the comments. My problem with the entire system of do's and do not's is that I think the medical profession could do with a bit of education on the concept of risk.

Every risk to a pregnant woman's health is treated as a certainty rather than a possible, and because we have lots of guidelines and regulations doctors, midwives etc often seem scared to use their common sense when giving advice.

Classic example is the alcohol thing - although my understanding is that there is no evidence that an occasional glass of wine does any harm to pregnant women or their babies the guidance is that pregnant woman shouldn't drink at all.

I think there should be a lot more information out there on the reasons for the guidance and the statistics around probabilities so that pregnant women can make informed choices about how they want to live their lives, manage their pregnancy and then eventually care for their children.

(the other one that really gets me going is the multivitamins for breastfed babies after 6 months but thats an entirely seperate topic!)

Just reading this thread shows me there is a lot of ignorance out the guidance itself and the reasons behind it which means we often make choices for the wrong reasons.

[nannynobnobs]

During my second pregnancy the midwife told me that one of the other women she looked after had caught listeriosis while pregnant with twins. Luckily they were all okay, but it did make me cautious.
I did still eat Brie sometimes though... I just found it so hard to walk past my favourite sandwich shop, where they did brie, tomato and full fat Hellmanns mayo in a big baguette just for me.

[thenameiwantedwastaken]

''I would be interested to hear what French doctors advise about cheese. I heard they don't proscribe wine.''

I heard that in France there is a higher instance of foetal alcohol syndrome than in the UK.

The guidelines are based on statistical analysis and have they really changed that much? (I remember my Mum avoiding brie 20+ years ago).

As others have said they are only GUIDELINES and risk of something going wrong is pretty small but I chose to follow them when pregnant as it didn't put me out too much and it cut my worry. E.G. if I ate some mouldy cheese I would have then worried for the next 48 hours or so that it would make me ill. If I followed the guidelines I could just stop worrying about it and let nature take care of the stuff I couldn't control.

[lovechoc]

yes woozlet I'm scottish. haggis contains a very strange mix of ingredients but tastes delicious!

thanks to lotster for pointing out the vitA thing aswell. I couldn't remember the full details but that sounds about right what you've stated in your last post.

[TotallyAndUtterlyPaninied]

caught out i didn't read it through.

Give me wensleydale over blue anyday though.

[Lotster]

TotallyAndUtterlyPaninied: don't think you read through it all, but as I posted above the reason mould ripened cheese could make you ill for the first time in pregnancy is because your normally high resistency to salmonella/ listeria (which are already in eggs/cheese but you tolerate it normally) is reduced. So high levels of it, coupled with your temporary low resistancy could cause you to become ill. Fairly rare though, bu certainly Listeria can be very, very nasty in pregnancy.
Sorry to labour that point but if you're preg now it's good to know

I also ate prawns throughout too, yum - fresh and well cooked there's no reason not to.

[Emster30]

Just to add you can definitely eat smoked salmon and cold cured meats. Yum! They're off the list in America but here we say they're OK.

[TotallyAndUtterlyPaninied]

YANBU, I'm pregnant and I eat prawns etc. I tend to keep away from blue cheese, partly because the sheer thought of it makes my nostrils curl, and partly because I'm not meant to as it's mould on cheese, but it's never made me ill any other time so why would it now? Same with eggs. I love a good fried runny egg.

I don't drink, smoke, go out clubbing, etc.

[Lotster]

Just found this recipe for haggis from Maw Broon:

1 sheep's stomach bag (yum!)
1 sheep's pluck - liver, lungs and heart
3 onions
250g beef Suet
150g oatmeal
salt and black pepper
a pinch of cayenne
150mls of stock/gravy

as it has liver I assume it contains Retinol, which Preggos are supposed to avoid.

(info on why liver should be avoided in anyone's interested:

There are two types of vitamin A, retinol, preformed vitamin A, and beta-carotene, which the body converts to vitamin A. Prenatal supplements contain beta-carotene rather than retinol. Liver is very high in the retinol type of vitamin A, and studies have shown that women consuming too much retinol during pregnancy have a higher risk of having a baby with birth defects such as malformation of the face, head, heart and nervous system.)

If you're taking a fish oil supplement in PG as I did, you need to get one that's made fromthe body of the fish, not the liver.

I am not, by the way a big naysayer on what you can eat in pregnancy! I'mjust really interested in nutritional medicine and diet.
I ate some poached eggs, had the odd bite of blue cheese and glasses of wine in both my PG's. We have to make our own minds up after all. But as I said in my first post, listeria is not something I would dice with again, salmonella I might take my chances - IMO vomiting is not as dangerous as listeria but that's just what I'd do.

[woozlet]

I have just looked it up too for you. Apparently it has liver in it, as well as god knows what else (tastes yum though doesn't it?). Anyway, since its totally cooked it's not got the raw/cold risk that pate has and I guess you would need to eat quite a lot of liver to have too much vit A?

I was never told to avoid it anyway.

I take it you are scottish?!