I ate parma ham ... now worried

[Madigan]

Last night I ate parma ham, and now i am really worried about it ........... 28 weeks pregnant and feeling soooooooooo stupid. Reassurance please????

I had toxoplasmosis and my DD is absolutely fine. It's not caught through raw meat, it's normally badly washed salad (yep, I didn't wash my salad properly, so slovenly!...)

Totally agree with winnybella, Listeria cannot survive on parma ham it is too salty.

More chance of catching food poisoning from lettuce or fruit that hasn't been washed properly.

Had to look at the thread as couldn't work out why there was a problem!

To the OP, chill out, you ate it, so far you aren't ill, many others would be happy to eat it.

In reference to the dippy eggs - more chance of salmonella from touching egg shells and not washing your hands that eating the eggs!

Re: the liver - its only an overdose of vit A thats a problem, so occasional liver is fine. Liver at every meal would be a problem.

Thanks MumNWLondon and Winnybella - you have put my mind at rest for eating haggis. I didn't think such a small amount would be harmful but it did niggle.

Thanks guys, will ask dr about toxoplasmosis test. Who knew there was a risk from bloody salad-surely the most inncent of foods?? Well, let's face it there are a million things you can worry about at this time so I tell myself I can only do my best. Same goes for you Madigan- hang on in there we'll be fine x

I have to say, during my pregnancy I:

-drank alcohol (very moderately, even now I only manage 1-2 glasses wine a week at most)
-ate brie & other cheeses like that
-ate runny eggs
-ate some pates (not that I eat pate frequently)
-didn't even think about not eating parma ham (didn't know there was a rule about it but am not even fan of parma ham tbh)

In general, relax, these rules are driving people mad. Apart from being completely stupid & drinking a bottle of vodka in one sitting when 6 months pregnant, there's little you can do to deliberately harm your baby. Babies (embryos) are much more resilient than we think.

By the way, about the alcohol issue, I find it very amusing that in the UK there's also this hysteria about the odd glass of wine during pregnancy, when at the same time there is such a binge-drinking problem in the whole country. Its such an all or nothing thing, it ends up being funny. I've seen women who regularly binge drink after work on weeknights going completely bonkers over one glass of beer or wine during pregnancy.

"more chance of salmonella from touching egg shells and not washing your hands that eating the eggs!"

Is this true? Am I collecting the eggs from my hens every day and depriving myself of a lovely runny fried egg sandwich for nothing? I DO wash my hands with an antibacterial wash after doing anything out in the yard, but this was more because where you have horses and chickens you are bound to have rats, even if you never see them. (I'm hoping all our rats have drowned - the pony can barely keep her head about water with the amount of rain!)

Mmmm, dreaming of fried egg sandwiches.....

If you were going to get food poisoning it would have started by now.

The chances of getting something like listeria are pretty tiny (1 in 10,000 and this figure had no data on pre-existing conditions). Toxoplasmosis in pregnancy is something like 0.1% on the worst case figures (and quoted as about 0.01% in another set of figures I've read). Thus you're more likely to be involved in a Road Traffic accident.

If you're reasonably healthy anyway and you trust where your food comes from and how it's been kept, then once in a while probably isn't going to be that much to worry about.

The more I've read about these pregnancy food "laws", the more I realise that they're for people who aren't sensible or can't properly calculate a RDA (e.g. the Vitamin A thing) or who happily eat in greasy spoons of dubious cleanliness. Just like the alcohol debate - should pregnant women have some or not? Having read up on Fetal Alcohol Syndrome it seems to me that the no booze at all figure was decided on because many people don't actually know what 1-1.5 units actually looks like and it's easier to say none than some.

But if you haven't got time to calculate and measure and research statistics, then the stuff is best avoided.

Pandora69 - not sure this applies to your own hens though - there was a large scale study done recently into salmonella in UK vacinated hens - none of the eggs in the study contained salmonella but a few had salmonella on the shell. I have been eating runny eggs from supermarket vacinated hens.

Hi

This is my second pregnancy and first time around I was so worried about everything.

When DD was 18 months old DH, me and DD went back packing around the world for 18 months, I was amazed at how differently pg is treated in each place.
The thought of Italian women not eating Parma ham, french women not eating brie, Japanese women not eating sushi and pacific islanders not eating shellfish is absurd.

As a result I am much more relaxed about what I eat this time around, having the odd glass of wine, my own home made icecream, eggs that havent gone completely solid in the middle, sushi, steak which is not cremated and even peanuts which used to be an absolute no no.

How do we know when we go to the supermarket if the cooked ham is ok? How long has it been in the chiller for? Is the rice from the takeaway freshly cooked? etc etc.

There are so many places we could catch bugs from we would just stop eating if the DOH had their way.

Be sensible, use your judgement and common sense - we have a lot more than we're given credit for, even with pg brain!

Sorry if this is long and a bit ranting but I'm fed up with all the scaremongering that goes on.

Enjoy your pregnancies, its a special time.

Laura xx