Food Safety and Pregnancy

Pregnancy brings with it a plethora of considerations. What to eat and what not to eat can cause a lot of stress for expectant parents. So let’s talk about food safety. I want you to know what steps to take to prevent foodborne illness and why it’s important. I also want you to feel confident in choosing safe seafood options to nourish your body (and your baby’s!) with those crucial Omega-3’s.

Before we start, here’s a link to a downloadable PDF from the FDA:

🔗 Food Safety Booklet for Pregnant Women, Their Unborn Babies, and Children Under Five

You can find more information about everything we are covering in this lesson and more. It’s a great resource for pregnancy, breastfeeding or chest feeding, and beyond.

Preventing Foodborne Illness

Foodborne illness is illness caused by consuming foods that are contaminated with bacteria, viruses, or parasites. Here are some examples of germs that cause foodborne illness:

• E. coli
• Salmonella
• Campylobacter
• Listeria
• Norovirus
• Toxoplasma

Common symptoms of foodborne illness include nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, abdominal cramps, fever, and dehydration. As these are unpleasant symptoms, food safety is important for everyone. And some people are more susceptible to more serious effects of food-borne illness than others. This includes fetuses, young children, pregnant people, older adults, and those this compromised immune systems.

In pregnancy, listeria and toxoplasma are especially harmful. Pregnant people are 10 times more likely to get listeriosis than those that are not pregnant, due to changes in the immune system. And listeriosis and toxoplasmosis can cause serious harm to an unborn baby. You can read more about these two illnesses at the following links:

🔗 Listeria- Food Safety for Moms to Be | FDA

🔗 Toxoplasma- Food Safety for Moms to Be | FDA

So, here are two ways to reduce your risk of foodborne illness: safe food handling and avoiding certain foods.

Safe Food Handling

It is important to take proper precautions when handling food to prevent foodborne illness. The FDA recommends these four basic steps:

• Clean: Make sure your hands and food preparation surfaces are clean.
• Separate: Separate raw foods (like raw meats and eggs) that need to be cooked from foods that aren’t going to be cooked (like fruits and vegetables) to prevent cross-contamination of germs.
• Cook: Make sure food is cooked to safe temperatures, and use a food thermometer to be sure.
• Chill: Avoid letting foods sit out for too long and make sure they are chilled in a refrigerator right away.

I would add that it’s important to make sure to throw out foods with signs of spoilage. When shopping, avoid buying foods that are expired or past the “sell by” date. It's important to always be aware of the condition of canned foods. Avoid the cans that are dented, rusted, bulging, or leaking.

Foods to Avoid

Now, let’s talk about foods that are more likely to contain germs that cause foodborne illness.

Here’s the list:

• Unwashed fruits and vegetables
• Raw sprouts
• Raw or undercooked meat and poultry
• Raw or undercooked seafood and shellfish
• Raw or undercooked eggs/ foods that contain raw or undercooked eggs
• Unpasteurized milk/ foods made from unpasteurized milk (soft cheeses, yogurt, ice cream)
• Hot dogs and deli meats that haven’t been reheated
• Deli salads that don’t contain preservatives and aren’t made at home
• Refrigerated, unpasteurized pâtés
• Raw flour and raw dough

💡Tip: To reduce your risk of illness, avoid these foods in their unwashed, unpasteurized, raw, or undercooked forms. This doesn’t mean you can’t eat many of the foods on this list! Most are fine to eat if properly washed and reheated or cooked to an appropriate temperature. And if you’re craving a deli salad, opt for one made at home instead.

Choosing Safe Seafood Options

Seafood is recommended as part of a well-balanced diet, because these foods are nutrient-dense. Notably, many seafood options are a great source of Omega-3 fatty acids. However, due to varying mercury levels, some choices should be limited or avoided altogether, especially in pregnancy and while breastfeeding/ chest feeding. Higher levels of mercury can lead to health issues in humans but unborn and young children are especially susceptible to negative effects.

This quote from Emily Oster in her book, Expecting Better, sums it up well:

Mercury is bad for your baby. Omega-3 fatty acids are good for your baby. Fish contain both. Your best option is to try and pick fish with a lot of omega-3s and not a lot of mercury.

Avoiding seafood altogether is not necessary or recommended. Instead, aim for eating seafood that is both lower in mercury content AND higher in Omega-3 fatty acids. A few examples of really great seafood options include salmon, catfish, herring, and sardines.

What you want to avoid are those options that are both higher in mercury content and lower in Omega 3s. This includes options like orange roughy, kind mackerel, canned tuna, and grouper.

There are many more options that what I listed here, including some you could still have in limited amounts. Check out this link from the FDA and EPA on advice about eating fish for more information:

🔗 Advice About Eating Fish

Additional Resources to Explore

📑 References