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

[kidcreoleandthecoconuts]

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

[InMyLittleHead]

I agree with mathanxiety. There are lots of things which severely affect pregnant women but are just taboo. I think the statistic is that 65% of domestic violence cases start during a pregnancy. Also postnatal and antenatal depression is not widely understood. Spreading information on some of these things is more useful than these prohibitions.

[woozlet]

Hmm, I don't think you are being unreasonable. But I cooked unpasteurised cheeses first when I was pregnant. I think I was overly cautious on some things, but I guess I'd rather not take any avoidable risks no matter how small they were.

[Habbibu]

It comes down to whether the "cost" of avoiding the risk is higher than the risk itself - for me avoiding various foods was not that taxing, and because I'd lost a baby before, I'd lost that sense of innocence that we all have to start off with. I mean, you could post "I'm pregnant and not taking folic acid" and for about 999/1000 women that wouldn't be an issue - I was, unfortunately, that 1 in 1000, and the point is, you just don't know.

Now, to take TDWP's analogy with cars, yes, the risk is higher, but the cost of controlling it for me would be giving up my job, my social life, my ability to get to the shops in a sensible time, and that's too high - to me this is how we manage risk; by calculating our personal cost and controls - guidelines are useful for that reason.

[Lotster]

To clarify the rice thing, rice you have just freshly cooked yourself is fine. It's when you leave it then reheat it that it can get dangerous.

Some items are also fine from the fridge or chilled cabinet in shops, but if items have been lying around at room temperature in say a deli like meats and quiches, then you should avoid. If you don't know how long ago it was cooked or how it's been stored then avoid.

[lovechoc]

ta for the reassurance about the lettuce thing. one less thing to worry over. yes I always wash all fruit and veg. I suppose common sense is what matters most in these cases.

[SolidGoldBangers]

Look, all these 'guidelines' are not really about guaranteeing you a perfect baby, because that is not something that can be guaranteed. You can do your best to follow every single guideline you are given (even contradictory ones) throughout your PG and still some totally unforseen thing can happen which means that you or the baby get ill and die, or that the baby is born with difficulties of some kind (I am using the word 'difficulties' in a way which I hope is not offensive to anyone).
The constant screaming about dietary and behavioural restrictions for PG women is a mixture of arse-covering (Don't sue anyone, you were warned), a preference for blaming women for anything that might happen to them rather than looking at other causes such as environmental contamination or, of course, the severe underfunding of maternity and obstetric services and finally* it's pushed hard by the sort of people who don't like women, don'treally think they are human beings, and want to force them to submit to Authority because after all they are just incubators on legs and should stop trying to make choices of their own.

[tinkerbellesmuse]

SGB good post.

Isn't Listeria only present in unpasturised cheeses? - 99% of the cheese you buy in the supermarket is pasturised and therefore Listeria free, that includs your rocqefort, gorgonzolla and brie de meaux.

By law any cheese that is unpasturised must be labelled as such.

[Fibilou]

"The issue with sushi/sashimi or whatever it is is not just about raw fish but about rice. Rice is an absolute bugger for giving food poisoning, and therefore I would avoid if I was pg"

I would like to point out to everyone on here that this is utter NONSENSE.

Rice carries a bateria called clostridium perfringins; this is killed by boiling. However food poisoning can occur when rice is sitting around being kept warm (eg in a takeaway kitchen) or is reheated the next day to an insufficient degree - it must be heated until it is piping hot. If these precautions are taken there is very little risk of contracting clostridium.
There is no problem at all with cold rice and the issue with sushi is those made with raw fish.

[Tweetinat]

A few points:

Actually, the food standards agency says that it is fine to eat sushi in pregnancy... www.eatwell.gov.uk/asksam/agesandstages/pregnancy/

Technically, even pasteurised cheeses which are on the normal no-no list are not allowed as it's the conditions of these cheeses (moist) which encourage bacteria to grow...not necessarily the un-pasturisation of the cheese.

BUT fwiw, I think the OP is NBU. Like someone else on this thread looked at the statistics and made a decision that one. The chance of actually catching listeria which was so ridiculously high (something like 1:45,000) that I deemed the risk low and decided to eat it in moderation.

[tinkerbellesmuse]

Fibilou When I did my food hygiene cert many years ago I was told that the bacteria in rice (I thought it was Botulism?) couldn't be killed through reheating BUT that it only bred in warm rice. Therefore if you cooked your rice and chilled it quickly (e.g. in the fridge - which much to my grandmother's horror is apparently permissable with modern friges!)the bacteria wouldn't grow and therefore you could reheat (or eat cold) until your hearts content. This is why cold rice is ok - provided it is actually cold.

However I worked in Sainsbury's coffee shop and only serbed cups of 75p tea to little old ladies so I am willing to be corrected!

[kidcreoleandthecoconuts]

Barack - I'm not ignorant...just human .
How can you compare me occasionally eating blue cheese to someone who smokes throughout their pregnancy. We're not even in the same league.

[Fibilou]

TBM, botulism is the one that is found in "blown" tinned food.
I was wrong, however, having looked through my book it's bacillus cereus not clostridium in rice.
Without wanting to go into too much detail, bacillus is a spore producing bacteria and the spores are not killed unless the rice is completely cooked in the first place.
If rice is cooked at over 100 for over 20 minutes then bacillus is not a problem, it is when rice is not sufficiently cooked to start with that the problems occur as the spores are not destroyed and start to grow when sbjected to heat. If that heat reaches 100 for 20 minutes the spores will be killed in turn.

[skihorse]

Here in The Netherlands whilst unpasteurised cheese is not recommended, any other type of cheese that you can buy at a Dutch supermarket cuts the mustard and is considered safe.

Personally I have never been ill through the consumption of cheese.

I have severe cravings for Roquefort now - thanks to whomever brought that up!

[YorkshireRose]

I seem to remember from a course in my microbiology degree many moons ago that Bacillus cereus poisoning is particularly caused by fried rice in chinese restaurants if leftover boiled rice which has been lying around is used for the frying.

[flyingcloud]

Well I am in France and I looked up on the internet when I fell pregnant for their official guidelines and I found the following:
No soft/unpasteurised/blue cheese (it's the mould which can cause listeria
No smoked salmon (or smoked or raw fish)
No pate or charcuterie
Cut down on alcohol and caffeine

When I asked my doctor she told me to carry on as normal, just not to drink or smoke. Most people will do this, but it's not official guidelines.

When I had my toxoplasmosis test (no immunity) I was given VERY STRICT instructions from my doctor and gynaecologist to avoid rare /uncooked/ cured/ meat and unwashed salad or vegetables.

[NorkyButNice]

Pate is the only thing I plan to completely avoid in this pregnancy - it contains large amounts of Vitamin A which can cause birth defects (neural tube issues I think).

Otherwise, I think be sensible, eat "dodgy" foods if you know the food is good quality, and don't have anything to excess.

[StrikeUpTheBand]

Lettuce I think you just need to wash well and to your own standards - they advise you wash prewashed again yourself.

To the OP YABVU. Why be proud of doing something that could potentially harm your baby. It makes me very cross. You sound so proud of yourself as well. Believe me if anything actually happened to your baby (related to eating the cheese or not) you would torture yourself as to if you did everything right. Believe me, I know. But even before I lost my first baby I was careful about what I ate and drank, so it wasn't just that.

It's not that long to put yourself out, people!

[iateallthecreameggsyummy]

aww cmon strike the OP has not said she is eating this every day perhaps it was just a small treat, go all out for an evening.

Thats like slating me for saying right im going to have a glass of red sod it! Plus it would be hard to prove that if anything did go wrong with the baby it was down to the cheese.

Totally agree its not long to put ourselves out not having certain foods but its about moderation isnt it surely??

[TheLadyEvenstar]

Not to upset anyone here BUT

Are we really meant to believe that the foods we eat etc define whether our babies are born or not?

Is that not down to Nature taking its course??

My sister did everything by the book and had 5 miscarriages.

with ds1 i didn't know i was preg until I was 4 1/2m pg. I had been out drinking most weekends, all night parties, eaten all that i wanted, smoked etc he was born 3 weeks early weighing 6lb 7oz and healthy.

with ds2 i was in eurodisney on rollercoasters at 5m preg, also ate what I wanted, managed to cut smoking down to 5 a week, on the day i had him i had been to my sisters and had 2 glasses of wine.

I think imo that nature determines what happens in pregnancy.

[skihorse]

TheLadyEvenstar I totally agree with you - I think here in "The West" we get ourselves in such a tizzy about this sort of stuff. What about all the women in Africa/Asia/China who are having millions upon millions of babies and these are women who do not have adequate sanitation/water/food or even Boot's folic acid tablets?

[skihorse]

Boots.

[iateallthecreameggsyummy]

here here skihorse very good point! Yet they still manage to have babies.

[Fibilou]

Skihorse, I'm sure there must be some baby-killing poisons in those pearls. I think you should take them off just in case something dire happens. In factyou might fall over, get them caught in something and slowly strangle to death. It's only a small risk but surely it's just not worth it.....

[Fibilou]

So what you're saying, SUTB, is that not eating the foods they tell you not to still didn't stop you losing the baby ?

[iateallthecreameggsyummy]

shes wearing pearls! bad woman you!!