Interesting article from the Guardian on pregnancy guidelines

[bumperlicious]

Here. Not trying to be controversial , though feel free to debate away! Just though it might interest some people.

Fascinating article - I was hoping at the end of it that I could start having moderate quantities of my favourite cheeses, but after a quick websearch came across this:
"In the USA, an estimated 2,500 persons become seriously ill with listeriosis each year. Of these, 500 die. At increased risk are: Pregnant women - They are about 20 times more likely than other healthy adults to get listeriosis. About one-third of listeriosis cases happen during pregnancy." This is from Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.. Yet again, there is a whole load of conflicting information going round.
They also said that people with listeriosis have severe symptoms, but "Infected pregnant women may experience only a mild, flu-like illness; however, infections during pregnancy can lead to miscarraige or stillbirth, premature delivery, or infection of the newborn."
Put like that it does make me think twice, but where do we draw the line - women in spain told not to eat salad?? I've been eating Feta - I didn't realise that was on the Don't Eat list!
Another recent study found that women who ate over the safe level for fish (re mercury) actually had babies with higher IQ.
Is there any information out there we can actually trust? Perhaps you shouldn't get pregnant unless you have a phD in Epidemiology!!

I think Feta is fine in the UK provided that you check that its pasteurised as with other cheese. Certainly this Govt website says it is OK here

I think the problem is that in some countries (e.g. Greece itself) it's usually not pasteurised. In the US they are told to avoid it too. Prob the same reason.

Interesting article Bumper....

On the cheese issue, I used to work in a cheese shop (mainly selling british and irish farmhouse cheeses) and our advice to pg women was that sheeps and goats milk cheese should be avoided as a rule, as they actually carry the toxoplasmosis bug around in their guts....

...and that hard cheeses, like cheddar, parmesan, cheshire, double gloucester etc are OK whether pasteurised or not as the cooking process kills off any bugs...

....and that blue or soft mould ripened cheese like brie, camembert, munster etc should be avoided whether unpasteurised or not as the danger with those is the actual mould cultures themselves rather than listeriosis.....

Thanks Daisy - does that mean that Feta is off then?!
ARGH this is all a nightmare. I'm veggy too so trying to get protein when 3/4 of the cheese I eat is not allowed, eggs are off unless fuly cooked and there is a bit of a question mark about nuts is just a nightmare! Cuts out loads of my usual meals and getting pretty bored now, Still, only 6 wks to go....

I think it is an extremely well-written article. I have a lot of time for Zoe Williams - her pieces are incisive, thoughtful and often very cheeky!

The doctor who she quotes extensively, Eric Jauniaux, did my CVS for DD 4 years ago and is extremely knowledgeable and well thought of.

fantastic article.

i hope wotsername that was getting in a lather on the other thread about how stupid women were risking their unborn babies by having a glass of wine during pregnancy has read it.

Good article and reassuring to see it backs up my own non scientific theory which i used through my 1st pregnancy and am using now (yummy gorgonzola sat in the fridge as we speak!!)....this is M&S approach to pregnancy foods.

My reasoning was that as a lot of old ladies buy M&S food and they are also a group at risk from listeria then i figured it would be headline news if hoards of old folk were keeling over with food poisoning from M&S. As ive never seen anything like this on the news then i figured if i bought something in Marks it would be ok to eat!! Therefore blue cheese, brie, prawns and anything else i fancied really from M&S were on my menu! I did avoid pate but knew that was the Vit A issue not food poisoning.

Obviously this is all a big ruse to eat yummy food from M&S like a horse but at least i know my logic was good!

Thing is though, you'd have to eat a pretty large quantity of pate on toast to go over the recommended amount of vitamin A.

Also, the salmonella thing, this can make a pregnant woman ill but is of no risk at all to the baby. So if you buy low risk eggs then you're pretty much fine there too whatever you do with the eggs.

Oh, I'm loving this. I'm getting thoroughly fed up with being bossed around and generally being told I'm too fluffy headed and hormone addled to make a decision. People that feel the need to comment upon either my diet or the fact that I still allow myself a small glass of red twice a week can, frankly, do one. Zoe Williams - more power to you.

Catz- feta is ok as usually it is pasteurised- at least Tescos & Sainsbury's greek feta is! I too am veggie but have to admit to eating quite a bit of fish so not strictly veggie!

I have a good friend who is French & says that they don't impose so many food restrictions over there by any means...she carried on eating un-pasteurised cheeses (e.g. camembert) and soft-boiled eggs throughout her pregnancy, plus the odd raw oyster...Have to admit I am a bit more laid back about these things than perhaps I ought to be also- had a soft-boiled egg with DS this morning (32 weeks pregnant now) from my MIL's hens !

"the odd raw oyster".... how stylish is that?

Hairybabysmum I like your M&S approach. Wish I'd thought of that. I had to pretend I was French.

I basically ate whatever I wanted throughout my pregnancy and it's good to see I'm not the only one. Preggos get themselves in such a lather over the food advice, and there's a lot of crossed wires and misinformation going on - the number of confused threads on mumsnet alone about what you are and aren't "allowed", ffs, demonstrate this very well.

It's so easy to scare pregnant women isn't it? You're told if you do this, eat that and drink then you will be risking your babys health and well being. So at a time when you may be feeling a little mixed up anyway, you start getting bullied by often well meaning but unnecessary advice.
On a slight tangent, I was really p'd off with a health visitor who told me about the 'new' guidelines about keeping babies up to 6 months old with you at all times to help avoid cot death and then told me of a couple who left their baby upstairs at 8pm and it was dead by 9pm. This on her first visit. Imagine if I'd been a first-timer.
I agree with the point she was making about whether we decide to follow all the 'rules' or not, thereby making anything that does go wrong our fault. Just wait, there will be parents on trial for not following advise and something happening.

Actually, I remember seeing this article saying that all women of child bearing age should consider themselves as "pre-pregnant" and act accordingly...

And in today's Guardian there's a feature saying stress during pregnancy affects the baby's IQ!

In the Independent there's a small paragraph saying pregnant women should not take iron supplements unless they are anaemic. What about the pregnancy multivitamins that contain small amounts of iron?

Seems we pregnant women are in the news every day at the moment. There's an awful lot of conflicting advice out there.

Great article - well done bumper!

I think pregnant women are just an easy target at the moment! If someone wants to tell people what to do, they always go for us pregnant ones...
I have used my own judgement on things, I like to have the odd little glass of wine and there is no evidence that this is a terrible thing. Besides which "they" change their minds all the time. My Nan was prescribed a pint of Guinness a day by her doctor when she was pregnant - for the iron! She had 5 strapping lads, don't see a teeny glass of vino once or twice a week is going to be that different...

I wish I'd read this article 7 months ago. I think I'd still have been cautious about cheeses, but not so paranoid.

We seem to have gone out for a lot of meals over the last few months, and eat occasion has made me more determined to open a restaurant for pregnant vegetarians with indigestion.

LOL naturelover...my pregnancy has been one long stressed out trip from start to (not quite) finish......I'll confirm back on the IQ later...

....But then again that could be because I had the temerity to have the odd glass of wine!

.....and I've not eaten an egg yet that wasn't soft and gooey...no point in eggs any other way unless for your sarnies!

Lovely lovely.

Re Vitamin A.

Vitamin A that you make in your body from beta-carotene is ok - you make what you need so "vitamin a" from veg etc like carrots doesn't count.

Vit A from supplements, fortified cereals/bread and from dairy / liver does count. Conservative estimate of what is safe in preg is 10,000 IU a day. Some places says 30,000 (and that would be the places that have done a controlled study...).

A glass of milk or an egg has about 300 IU.
A tbsp of pate has about 430.

So if you ate 350g of pate every day for a month, you might be endangering your baby.

And then there are the nutritionists who are concerned about vit A deficiency in pregnant women and newborns...

That is a fantastic article, thank you so much for posting it.

I ate sushi the other day at work, because I really fancied it, and figured that if someone had damaged their baby through M&S sushi we would have heard about it anyway. One of the other pg's in the office nearly fainted and I got lectures all day from my colleagues.

Any I won't feel so guilty about that glass of lovely Rioja I had the other night either!

Bumper - I love this article - thank you

Oh, and re: Vit A. I don't know how true this is but the midwife I had with DS said that they used to tell you to eat liver for the iron content, but a woman in America ate pounds of the stuff, literally, all the time, and gave her baby Vit A poisoning. Since then the advice has been not to eat it at all. She said that if I wanted to eat some then have it, everything in moderation and all that...

Don't know how true the story is but I've always thought that if you read up on the risks yourself and make your own judgements then you can't go far wrong.

Yes mum2george, my mum was told all through her pregnancies to eat liver (for the iron content)!

What a great article - thanks bumper - have forwarded it to all my pregnant friends!

Have just read that article you posted Bumperlicious

Very very scary

Someone said pregnant women are targets "at the moment".

I think we ain't seen nothin' yet.

great article!! xx