Quick Quick I'm about to order a pizza and REALLY fancy goatscheese....

[HeinzSight]

Is the goats cheese pizza from pizza hut OK to eat when pregnant. I've looked at the food standards website and it says if it's goats cheese with a rind then it's a no. But surely it's cooked so it'd be OK?????

And no, I don't cook ANY cheese before I put it on my pasta, I cook it WITH the pasta.

Well clearly you're fed up and need to be given a wide berth!

But I can identify with you somewhat, just an hour ago I shouted at my DH for making me feel like 'an incubator'.

No, do you know,, I haven't been pregnant for the last 3 years, it made such an impact on me though. I HATED all the silliness that comes when you get pregnant. Made me feel like a lab animal!

To me common sense is sticking to the food standards agency guidelines, which specifically says that parmesan is OK

www.eatwell.gov.uk/agesandstages/pregnancy/whenyrpregnant/

It isn't as simple as whether it is pasteurised or not, Parmesan because it is hard and dry does not provide the right environment for listeria to survive and multiply.

No, brett, it isn't that simple, but if you cook it, any cheese is fine for pregnant women.

Yes, absolutely. People misunderstand the advice too though in terms of uncooked cheese too - someone at work told me that I couldn't eat Philidelphia!

Hmmmm, then I need to do some investigating--my store had three different brands of parmesan, all bearing that stupid warning label. Wonder why if FSA says it's ok? Prior to that incident I hadn't been worried about parmesan.

Now just looked at a few other websites (googled 'parmesan in pregnancy'), and they all say parmesan is ok, even if NOT pasteurised! WTF?? So why label it 'not suitable'? Why are they denying pregnant ladies their parmesan??? As if there's not enough crap we're supposed to try to avoid!!

'Common sense' would say the packaging shouldn't try to put you off of something it is okay to have! Thought food labeling was supposed to have some kind of truth in it!

None of it is 'silliness' if you have had a baby affected by a food born virus. You are lucky but don't scoff at other people's well founded caution. Roll your eyes if you will but your exasperation is born of good fortune rather than science. These rare, freaky, sad things do happen to people in real life and the warnings aren't there just to get on your nerves.

Sorry - bacteria not virus. Someone said virus on tv as I was posting.

Eat parmesan. Eat goat's cheese. Eat prawns. Eat brie. For God's sake, stop being martyrs just because you're pregnant. I would no more trust the Food Standards Agency, a government department of unthinking drones that changes its tune more often than I change my big pregnancy knickers, than I did the Treasury over its ?we're not in a recession? mantra. Think for yourselves. Enjoy your food and enjoy your pregnancy. Half the bloody world is starving and millions of mums-to-be are just grateful for a glass of clean tap water.

Rant over. Just tired of middle class twaddle about eating cheese/eggs/seafood when pregnant. In just the nine months I've been pregnant, the government advice on eating peanuts has come full circle. How can you trust these people?

I think that it is worth being careful about the main causes of Listeria. 80% of women who get listeria when pregnant have a miscarriage/stillbirth and the risks are not less the later into pg it is. However, it is possible to get food poisoning from absolutely anything in reality.

Personally I never believed that peanut stuff anyway, because it always seemed that the opposite was as likely to be true. However, I actually find it comforting that they change the advice if there is new evidence - surely it would in fact be worse if they just left if the same?

The risk of contracting listeriosis is 1 in 20,000 pregnancies in this country.

The risk of dying in a road accident in any year in the UK approaches 1 in 20,000 too. By the way, this rises to a lifetime risk of 1 in 240. Which should worry you more than eating a goat's cheese pizza.

You don't stop driving your car when pregnant, or crossing the road. So are you being negligent? No, you are taking a calculated risk.

If you are unfortunate enough to get listeriosis, then a simple course of antibiotics will clear up most of the problems that can be transmitted to an unborn baby, such as eye infections and jaundice, or even meningitis.

Listeria is a soil-carried bacteria and is mostly found in fruit and veg and pre-packaged salads. Instead of avoiding perfectly good artisan-made cheeses and pates, you would be better off just making sure your fruit and veg (especially from abroad) are well washed.

Where the peanut allergy risk is concerned, by announcing a blanket ban on peanuts for pregnant women and nursing mothers, the FSA may have actually caused more serious allergies.

The Food Standards Agency is another incompetent government body like the Financial Services Authority. If you can consider the recent failings of the FSA to monitor some of the most flagrant spread-betting activies by UK banks with our money, then it is not a giant leap of imagination to work out what its namesake is doing with our food.

And one of the reasons that listeriosis in pg is so low is because most people avoid the main dangers. My uncle and FIL have both had listeria in the past 10 years so it isn't that rare. Perhaps this evidence is 'anecdotal' and 'unrepresentative' but it makes you think. I know that you can get food poisoning from anything, I have made that point but eating foods that are known to be high in listeria bacteria is in my opinion not worth the risk.

You can clearly do what you like, that is obviously your choice. The assertion, however that a simple course of antibiotics clearing up the problems is not true - you can't cure a still birth with amoxillin Of course you will probably get away with it, and assuming you do your baby will not have long term effects.

Where exactly have I advised against eating a goats cheese pizza? I only said that I wouldn't (but that was because I don't like goats cheese!)

I meant ?you? in the widest sense to all posters on this subject, I wasn't being personal. Can't stand goat's cheese either.

My main point is risk. At the moment I am 40+12 days and I'm being warned that by not being induced I will be increasing my baby's risk of being stillborn - from 1 in 1,000 to 2 in 1,000. So that's a twofold increase, but it's still very, very low.

Just as a dose of listeriosis is highly unlikely to end in the death of an unborn child, so is going over 42 weeks of pregnancy. We take calculated risks every day, and it's important to consider the real figures involved.

Emotive responses such as ?you can't cure a stillbirth with amoxicillin? are unhelpful because they detract from the real issue - your family's personal experience with the bacteria notwithstanding - that we take risks every day by just getting in our cars and driving to the supermarket. Should I feel that when I get home - still alive - that I have ?got away with it??

The way I look at this is... you are given guidelines to follow, you either follow to the letter or you don't its as simple as that, your pregnancy your decision. I follow the guidelines many of my friends don't at the end of the day I cant judge them its their choice.

That's absolutely true, but to me getting in my car is worth the risk whereas eating brie and pate isn't. Isn't that what calculating risk is about - weighing up the benefits and repercussions?

It definitely isn't true that you can cure the probs in unborn babies from listeria with antibiotics - that was the point I was making.

It's definitely your choice though, I also think that if you eat something regularly and usually it is unlikely to cause you a problem because you are used to the germs etc.

Oh and it does do my nut in when people start saying (unprompted) 'are you meant to be eating/drinking that?'

Hmmmm... perhaps there should be guidelines on what people can ask pregnant women. All stupid queries should be banned, along with ?when's it due? (when they asked the same question yesterday), and ?haven't you had it yet?? (when it's blatently obvious you haven't).

At about eight and a half months pregnant I went into Pret for a coffee and sandwich In Canary Wharf in London. After I ordered my cappucino, the barrista (all of 19 years old) asked: ?Decaff?? ?No,? I replied, ?I would like my coffee with caffeine.?

?Oh,? she said, ?but I thought caffeine caused miscarriages.?

?First,? I answered, ?I am very unlikely to miscarry as you can see clearly I am almost ready to drop. Secondly, what the hell do you know about the rates of miscarriage caused by caffeine? And thirdly, mind your own damn business.?

When teenage minimum wage earners think they have the right to berate pregnant women for their eating/drinking choices, then I think the pendulum has swung too much in favour of the busybodies. It's up to pregnant women to stand their ground and say, ?I am responsible for teaching the next generation of society to think for itself. I do that by listening to myself and making my own decisions. The buck stops with me.?

'Emotive responses such as ?you can't cure a stillbirth with amoxicillin? are unhelpful because they detract from the real issue - your family's personal experience with the bacteria notwithstanding'

But Killerkitty as this thread shows all our opinions are based on and formed by, to a greater or lesser degree 'personal experience'; your run-in with your teenage minimum wage earner in Canary Wharf (ignorant comments can come from any sector of the earrning spectrum, by the way), has formed your very strong opinion.

In all of my pregnancies, I have never ever once been challenged by a stranger, friend or family member about alcohol, caffeine or foodstuffs. I have chosen to avoid certain foods (including bagged salads, goats cheese) because I am simply too nervous. The risk of stillbirth due to any cause is relatively low (1 in 1,000), but if you become that one, and you find out what the cause is, the reality of these very powerful, deadly bacteria suddenly becomes an unwelcome part of your reality.

I was once a very blase pregnant woman who thought the whole food thing was ridiculous.
'Half the bloody world is starving and millions of mums-to-be are just grateful for a glass of clean tap water'. My caution is not born out of being fussy or middle class; I consider myself fortunate to be part of an age and a nation where the rates of stillbirth are lower (though have not actually dropped in many years) than elsewhere and than time gone by because we are aware that bacteria and viruses are a major cause of infant mortality, in utero and in the vunerable months after birth.

People always get flamed for 'personlising' this emotive issue but as I began, and as the Canary Wharf example illustrates, BOTH sides of the fence are informed by their own experiences. If I accept your choice to eat whatever you want without getting so clearly irritate, can't you accept mine not to also?

Over the years I have personally tested a huge number of food for Listeria, conducted challenge tests in which a whole load of Listeria were deliberately put into food and they tested over a period of days to see what would happen. I have conducted audits in food factories and this is utterly sad but know probably all there is to know about Listeria (which is really useful in life see my other post on not being able to get a job).

Anyway, I would and have eaten goats cheese throughout my pregnancies, if on a pizza it has been cooked and any Listeria on it would be killed off.

IME you are more likely to get Listeria on a lettuce.

As for Parmesan without boring you all to death, yes it is made from unpasteurised milk but it is classed as a hard cheese, it is matured for a minimum of 24 months (sometimes 3 years) this means it is made then sits in a special room for 3 years during which any nasty bugs in it die off.

FWIW antibiotics will not cure Listeriosis in a foetus.

Sweetkitty that is a really helpful post and interesting for anyone of either the cautious or the non cautious persuasion, thanks.

My rude ?minimum wage earner? expression was simply because although at 20 years or more younger than me, she felt she could take issue with my choices. Bet she wouldn't have done that to a suited banker... Anyway, that's neither here nor there and I too worked in a coffee shop many moons ago.

Yes, you're quite correct, Princeonthemove, I should be less irritated by people who choose to follow the food guidelines to the letter. You'll have to excuse me but at 42 weeks I'm now heartily sick of being pregnant and feeling as if everything I do is in the public domain.

All the time there is good, open discussion about pros/cons/risks etc, and useful posts from people like sweetkitty, then it's all up for debate. Just as long as we don't blindly accept the FSA's pronouncements as fact and we still apply common sense to our choices.

I'm really happy about this discussion---definitely learned some things and corrected some misconceptions/misinformation I'd had. Don't feel like cooking tonight and neither does DH, so we're going to Pizza Hut. And I'm having the goat's cheese pizza. With parmesan.

I asked my midwife about this. Pasteurised goats cheese in fine. Supermarkets label all cheese so have a look. Unpasteurised parmesan is fine to eat since it's matured for such a long time and is such a hard cheese that it doesn't harbour bactertia. I've eaten both throughout two pregnancies. Looooove goats cheese pizza!

And now I've cured my goat cheese addiction. Didn't even make it out of Pizza Hut before yakking in their toilets.