"Are you sure you want to order that?"

[ELM8]

Nearly 7 months pregnant, out for dinner with DH last night.

Really nice, chatty waitress. Go to order food and I order prawn skewers starter (cooked, obviously).

Waitress: "Oh I noticed you're pregnant, are you sure you want to order that?"

Me: "I assume they are cooked? They should be fine if so?"

Waitress: "Yes, maybe they will be fine then"

Me: ...

Waitress: "My sister is pregnant and she's just following all the rules so no fish for her.. do you still want to order them?"

I did.. and then went to the toilet and double checked the NHS website and it seems like prawns are fine.. am I missing something?!?!

You missed a golden opportunity to just quietly but very sternly tell her that you weren't pregnant.

People will be judgemental whatever you eat! I thought I'd be exempt as I'm vegan and obviously don't have all the usual things they tell you to avoid, but yet I still get people saying "are you sure you're having enough protein now that you're eating for two?" As if you're not responsible enough to make your own choices about your body when you're preg... You can't win!

I ordered a small glass of Prosecco with my meal when pregnant probably about 8 months. I hadn’t had anything to drink at all during my pregnancy but I was out with friends having dinner and just fancied a little glass so I decided to have one.
The waiter refused to serve it to me because I was pregnant so I told him that’s fine but will be taking our custom elsewhere then, we got up left and went to the restaurant across the street who happily served me a small glass of Prosecco 🙄

The waitress wasn't judging though. She just thought that maybe the OP was unaware and she was trying to be helpful. If she'd refused to serve you, that would be entirely different, but she was only checking.

U can eat them as long as they are cooked most fish we can eat ,we are ment to eat fish when pregnant is good for our babies. Id complain she gave u wrong advice.

If she was trying to be helpful, then maybe she should make sure that she isn't coming from a place of ignorance. I would have been livid, op.

That's the thing - prawns aren't even on the list of things to avoid?!

Sounds like I'm certainly not the only one though, and I hadn't thought about pregnant women going back and suing actually, thats a good point..

Refusal to serve us an entirely different thing (although this exchange was very close to being uncomfortably long enough for me to change my order) though, good for you for taking your custom elsewhere!

I've had similar in a pub drinking a non-alcoholic beer.. a LOT of funny looks and just means you don't enjoy it.

I guess this is just another fun aspect of pregnancy

Nothing wrong with them! People like to think they know it all unfortunately 🙄
I've eaten prawns and mussels throughout pregnancy. No harm at all as long as they are cooked as you said. Enjoy! X

You should have really gone to town on the embarrassment train and said “Actually I’m not pregnant” and watched her squirm

I had similar in a restaurant when pregnant with DC2. Waiters refused to put my order for a rare sirloin through to the kitchen So DH ordered it instead, I ordered whatever he wanted and we just swapped plates when they arrived!
The pregnancy police can fuck all the way off

I quite enjoyed walking round Tesco at 9 months pregnant with a huge bump and a bottle of champers tucked under my arm, returning people's stares with one of my own.

Obvs the champers was to celebrate the birth and end of alcohol free era!

I would have done the "I'm not pregnant though" response. Cow bag.
I love prawns and have been using my pregnancy as an excuse to eat them more than before because they're good for baby's brain development

I'd save 'livid' and 'cow bag' for people who refuse to serve you, not people trying to be helpful but who got it wrong.

I think her intentions were probably good but perhaps wasn’t her place to say. Her sister may be like me and is ultra paranoid about anything with a hint of dodgy.
As far as I am aware prawns are ok as long as they are cooked properly, I wouldn’t have risked them because a) They were cooked by someone else who didn’t know I was pregnant and I have trust issues, lol b) I have been ill before after dodgy seafood so it’s stayed with me.
But let’s face it, if the NHS website says it’s all good then it will be. (I am just unable to take my own advice, lol!)
It doesn’t sound like she was trying to be nasty; she obviously didn’t realise that you’d thought about it beforehand and was satisfied of your choice.

Reminds me of when I was pregnant with DC1 and ordered a coffee in Starbucks on my way to work.

Barista handed it over and said "I noticed you were pregnant so made it decaf for you - you must have forgotten to ask".

No, I didn't forget to ask. This is my one cup of coffee a day FGS, remake it!!!!

The waitress wasn't judging though. She just thought that maybe the OP was unaware and she was trying to be helpful. If she'd refused to serve you, that would be entirely different, but she was only checking.

Would she have asked an overweight person if they knew how many calories/ fat was in a rich dish? I'm sure she wouldn't have.

It is not her place to be "helpful" to someone she doesn't know, it is absolutely part of people somehow thinking a pregnant woman's body is public property and theirs to police.

She was both wrong and rude, and I personally think OP should leave a review as I really think people need to realise that they shouldn't be doing this.

Dh and I went out for breakfast when I was heavily pregnant with dd. The waitress delivered our food to the table and informed me that she'd asked them to make sure my eggs were well done because I was pregnant I can't stand hard egg yolks and if I had wanted them well done I'd have asked!

See, I think it is a waitresses job to be helpful to the customer. Some of you are going to give yourselves ulcers if you over react to someone essentially just trying to be kind and look out for you. She wasn't trying to police you - that would only be true if she refused to serve what you'd ordered.

She wasn’t being helpful though. She was, in fact, giving completely wrong advice...

My SIL nearly snatched a plate of food away from me in a very posh restaurant we had gone to for my mum's 65th birthday, I was 6 months pregnant with ds & had ordered monkfish wrapped in prosciutto with a prawn & champagne sauce & horror of horrors also had a couple of glasses of wine. Anyone would have thought I was committing murder. She was giving me dirty looks all night.

But she was wrong!

The prawn myth is tenacious. My SIL is a qualified nurse and mother of three and should have known better but she tried to force me to eat a plate of lettuce on Christmas Day instead of the prawn cocktail that she had made for everyone else. I had to pass my iPad around the table with the NHS pregnancy guidance on it to get her to back down.

She meant well though. It's less stressful to go through life not biting the heads off people who are well intentioned. Save it for the arseholes who refuse to serve you.
I'd be grateful to someone who risked a bollocking in order to protect me, even if they got it a bit wrong.

I think you’re supposed to avoid certain types of fish due to mercury levels but not prawns!

Aderyn the OP has said repeatedly the waitress didn't drop it and it was a very awkward exchange, enough to make her feel very difficult about continuing with her order. Not sure why you are so determined to excuse what was clearly crossing boundaries. And she is also wrong.

There is literally no other situation in which a waiter or waitress would feel it was up to them to intervene in a customer's choices apart from pregnancy. Do you not think it is a little patronizing for any stranger to suggest that they know better than you, the woman who has been pregnant for quite some time, what she should and should not be putting in her body? It's not as if it was a recipe with hidden prawns, it was clear to her what she was ordering.

No one is suggesting that the OP should have "bitten her head off", just that a gentle - hey that's really not very appropriate - as a follow up would help make the world a lot easier for pregnant women.

I know you all don't agree with me and some of the situations described above are outrageous, but I still think lots of people on this thread have over reacted to this particular incident, using words like 'livid' and telling the OP to leave a critical review etc. It's disproportionate, given her intention was to assist and not control.

You wouldn't tell a fat person about calories because this is information they will have known their whole lives. Pg is different because it means adjusting for a few months and giving up perfectly normal, everyday foods. It's easy to forget and accidentally eat something that you will then worry about. I did, first time around. I'd have been grateful if a waitress reminded me. And I don't see it as outside the remit of the job, just to clarify that the customer is certain. If I decided to order it anyway and they refused the order, that would be the time to get really angry.
I believe that responses to people should be matched to their intentions and overall behaviour.