Prawns in pregnancy, exactly what is the danger?

[clop]

Everywhere says they are potentially hazardous to eat in pregnancy, but nowhere seems to be specific why. Because have "harmful bacteria and viruses" and they might contain too much mercury, is best I can find.

Leaving aside the mercury issue...

What exactly would these bad bacteria do the fetus? Do they go across the placenta? Do they cause birth defects? Do they cause food poisoning bad enough in the mother to cause her to miscarry? Can the viruses go across the placenta or cause birth defects or stillbirth?

Isn't it just becuase you can get serious food poisoning from a bad prawn and it's the risk factor food poisioning with prawns / seafood? Personally I've had a few prawns in all my pregnancies and been fine. Wouldn't order them from a dody looking restaurant but had them home cooked.

OOh, nasty.
my experience as a health care worker....patients in ICu after dodgy prawns and severe food poisening.

very very very sick indeed....you work out what effect this would bave on baby.

Mum in multi organ failure pumped with drugs to keep alive....

Very rare but how lucky are YOU?

You're more likely to get food poisoning while pg because your immune system is depressed (so it doesn't attack the baby). And food poisoning is more serious when pregnant.

I just was more careful about food hygiene, made sure things were cooked through, eaten hot, fresh, from a good shop etc et.

(I know you said leaving aside mercury, but I don't think seafood is that high in mercury, I thought it accumulated as you went up the food chain, and as seafood is at the bottom ...)

The US gov't thinks pregnant women can eat seafood

Cooked prawns, Shellfish, smoked salmon, etc may contain bacteria listeria- very dangerous for babies, as it goes straight to bloodstream, over a couple of weeks, but hard to diagnose from symptoms alone. Flu like, but blood test will confirm. If you do a search on listeria, you will not want to risk them.

Prawns freshly cooked, i.e garlic prawns are not as bad, but i never eat those minature prawns even in fried rice notorious for food poisioning as they are frozen and then re heated, etc

According to gov website, prawns are fine as long as they are fresh and thoroughly cooked. It's raw seafood that's dodgy for listeria etc and also some types of fish are to be avoided due to high mercury contents. But in general fish and seafood is great for your baby and brain development in particular because of the omega fatty acids.

Like ThomCat I probably wouldn't order prawns down the local takeaway, but if you're sure they're freshly cooked they should be fine.

Check out the government website - v useful at laying out clearly what's ok and not ok to eat.

www.eatwell.gov.uk/agesandstages/pregnancy/whenyrpreg nant/

PS: slightly off the track of prawns, but... the website recommends two portions fish a week, but I read recently about a big research project that showed that the developmental benefits of fish outweigh the potential dangers of pollutants adn therefore the more you eat the merrier. Worth googling or doing a search on a paper's website if you're interested in knowing more...

PPS: Oh and I also read that lots of chocolate makes a smiley baby! Hurrah!

I craved - and had - the odd prawn sarnie from M&S when I was pregnant, delicious...

i too have craved for - and succumbed to -the lure of prawns whilst preg. I asked MW and she said as long as i know where from and properly cooked they should be fine. but avoid all other shell fish,swordfish and a few others.