How reprehensible is it not to follow dietary advice?

[Kathyis6incheshigh]

Really interested on people's views on this, in the light of this e thread on drinking in pregnancy.

It's clear from that thread that some people think a pregnant woman shouldn't take any risks at all with regard to drinking alcohol. So do risks with food count as the same or different?

Does a pregnant woman have a duty to follow dietary advice, or is it her body and her right to eat what she wants?

Discuss

oops typo - this thread not this e thread

There are guidelines to advise us on what the risks may (or may not) be of eating certain foods. Nothing is written in blood.

I ate soft boiled / runny eggs all through my last pregnancy because I read up on the risks and decided they were practically non existent.

Do what you want, I say.

Well it kinda depends where you believe the baby becomes a person in its own right worthy of preservation at all costs I guess. Anyone know what the legal position is on a woman who attempts suicide whilst pregnant but survives (sorry to be morbid)? Is that attempted murder of the unborn?

At the moment we prioritise the mother's rights as an individual in terms of choice making on things like smoking and drinking, but I wonder for how long and to what extent gestational viability comes into it?

I don't think the foetus has rights in law in this country at least, so afaik the mother attempting suicide wouldn't be in trouble for it.

MrsMattie - yes, and the evidence is very poor in some cases, and the advice culturally specific. Would you also say 'do what you want' in relation to drinking alcohol?

friend of mine was very gung-ho during her pregnancy. Went on hols to France and ate delish stink cheese and no doubt fois gras....but her lovely ds was born blind in one eye. The first thing the doctor asked was did you go to France?

SO I am somewhat careful with what I eat - especially checking the lion mark on eggs and pasteurised dairy stuff. Some booze but not much.

I think it is the mother's choice but that there is a certain obligation for her to at least base her choice on weighing risk factors.

Because evidence is often strong but not conclusive one cannot always say that the pregnant woman MUST not do X, Y or Z. And, so long as it is the mother's right to abort the pregnancy then it is equally her right as to how and if she sustains and protects the pregnancy in other ways. However, as others will clearly bear the brunt (i.e. providing care and services) of a live foetus born with defects or disability then perhaps separate consideration needs to be given to the situation where recklessness in behaviour results in antcipated malformation of the child thus requiring medical intervention at a cost to all?

How on earth would society ever police rules about what a pregnant woman could or couldn't do?? Should all pregnany women be locked up and monitored 24 hours a day to make sure they are not doing anything which could possible harm baby? If we have to do that then we have to keep mum and baby locked up for hte next 16 years or so, to stop Mum doing anything which could possible harm her child.

Irrespective of what we think of Mums who "break the rules", this sort of thing just cannot pragmatically be regulated for.

Well for instance they could make restaurants refuse to serve certain foods to pregnant women, or prosecute women if they eat the foods and the baby suffers.
Note I am not advocating that!

Dogstar - that's so sad. What do they think caused it?

dogstar sorry to butt in but I was wondering if they ever found a diagnosis for your friend? Did she or the baby have listeria?

Listeria is more likely to be found in chicken and raw vegetables than unpasteurised cheese I believe (correct me if I'm wrong), but I wouldn't want to cut them out of my diet.

I have a little glass of wine a couple of times a week and eat forbidden fruits sometimes when I can guarantee freshness and quality.

I agree guidelines are specific to different countries, here in Germany they don't worry about listeria but are hot on toxiplasmosis which noone mentioned to me in the UK...

Kathy is right about the advice being culturally specific - here in Japan, pregnant women are encouraged to eat sashimi (raw fish) , for example, because it is high protein, low fat. They are also told off for eating fruit, because it has lots of sugar (fructose). They can drink all the green tea they want, even though its high in caffeine.

Kathy - as a pregnant woman how is anyone going to know if I eat more than 2 (or whatever it is) tins of tuna a week?????? If a baby is not born healthy how can anyone prove that it was because of something the mum did??

How would a restaurant know whether a woman is pregnant? Do we all have to take a preg test before we're allowed the full menu????

Yep@Kathy.

I had the odd glass of wine through both of my pregnancies. Couldn't find any evidence to suggest I shouldn't.

People do do what they want, that's the whole point. Most grown up people are perfectly capable of making their own decisions based on the facts, too.

But a lot of the same points apply to alcohol Lal - eg the landlord doesn't always know if a woman is pregnant, doesn't know what she has already had to drink - and yet a lot of people are arguing that landlords should be free to refuse to serve alcohol to pregnant women.

but landlords are free to refuse to serve anyone they want to - I certainly don't think that I've seen any arguements that it should be illegal for landlords to serve alcohol to pregnant women?

So do people think it is legitimate to start viewing children born with birth 'defects' as potentially the products of their mother's 'irresponsible' behaviour? I seem to remember Jordan was initially castigated for causing her elder son's genetic condition. This marks a very interesting return to the old days of blame and stigma. Brian Rix (actor with daughter with Down's Syndrome) described on Desert Island Discs recently how in the 1950s he was quizzed by medics about his sexual fidelity after his daughter's condition became apparent.
It seems that some mothers have already taken this pseudo-medical judging role upon themselves armed with 'the evidence' (as they understand it). However, I think this is the inevitable outcome of the obsession with risks to the unborn.

Well there were a couple of people with licenses on that thread who argued that if a landlord served a pg woman s/he was already risking losing his/her license, though not everyone agreed.
And lots more people thought the landlord was within his rights.
But would people feel the same way about a restaurant refusing to serve 'risky' food?

Sorry - can't make my way through that whole thread - as far as I know there's nothing in a landlords licence about serving pregnant women?? Rules exist to protect children - pregnant women are capable of looking after themselves.

But this isn't really about what the laws are or are not. Laws and regulations operate in different ways in different cultures. What we need to challenge is the incredibly prescriptive, intolerant and unsupportive culture surrounding motherhood and parenting that exists which cases such as these and the responses to them illustrate.

It is interesting to note that the responses to the article on the Daily Mail website were far more tolerant of the woman's choices than those of many mumsnetters!

This is what I meant to post...and yes, I WILL judge a pg woman flouting guidelines for no good reason! I would feel extremely uncomfortable in her presence and would probably leave myself.

In the days before we knew you weren't supposed to eat stuff like brie etc, my aunty was pregnant and brie was her no. 1 craving. Her DD was stillborn .

I do understand that the risks are small with most of the stuff - runny eggs, etc etc. However, why would you take a small risk when it is so easily avoided? A slip up on the rules, OK, but disregarding them? I think just disregarding rules set by the department of health is silly. I stuck to the rules whilst pregnant with my DCs. I had lots of complications and my DCs were both at risk of stillbirth anyway. I was worried out of my mind and I feel quite angry when I see people with trouble free pregnancies just disregarding the rules because they are uncool or don't fit in with what they want. I think I have more sympathy for people who smoke in pg because it is an addiction. People who just disregard rules for no good reason upset me because for DS, every single day for 20 days before he was born (borderline prem), I had to be attached to the CTG heart monitor for sometimes quite a few hours to check that he wasn't about to have his heart stop beating. Same for my DD. Was horrible.

Those of you who are so worried about protecting unborn babies and ensuring that they are given a good start in life, there is something helpful and positive you can do.
That would be to fundraise, and campaign for more funding for, maternity and antenatal care: underfunded, ill-equipped, understaffed maternity units put far more babies (and mothers) at risk than what women choose to eat, drink or smoke.
But it's far easier (and suits some people's misogynistic agendas far better) to blame everything on women: when will those ignorant walking wombs just accept that they aren't people, that their only function in life is to be incubators and they should be forced into doing their duty by any means necessary.

crokky - sorry to hear about your aunt's baby - but there is really no way that anyone can say that her baby was stillborn because she are brie???

Re guidelines - they change all the time, and often aren't based on any objective evidence of increased risk. Guidelines a re not "rules" - there are no "rules" for a healthy pregnancy, just advice.

Also - far more damage is done to children by irresponsible parents after they are born than when they are in the womb - lets focus on that!

So do people think that people with a higher than average risk of genetic abnormality are morally wrong to try for a baby? What about people who are at high risk of miscarriage but keep on trying to conceive? Surely these people are also knowingly endangering the fetus?
The important thing here, as pointed out by others, is not the adherence or otherwise to petty restrictions, but the principle of seeing adult women as capable of making the best choices for themselves, their babies and their families AS THEY VIEW IT.

www.parentingculturestudies.org/seminar-series/index.html

Here is a good website if anyone is interested.

Crokky - pleeeease have a bit of sensitivity towards the pregnant women who will read your post about your aunt's stillborn baby and now be tying themselves up in knots about the odd bit of brie they might have consumed since becoming pregnant.

Yes there might be risk factors associated with consuming certain foods, but as you yourself point out, in the case of brie it really is a very small risk in the grand scheme of things.