Foods To Avoid During Pregnancy: Evidence-Based Or Little More Than Paranoia?

So, you're newly pregnant? Congratulations!

My "crunchy granola" midwife used to tell me that pregnancy is about so much more than physically gestating, or "cooking" that baby. Pregnancy, she said, is a unique rite of passage during with mothers-to be get the chance to emotionally prepare themselves for the road ahead, gradually going from "I have no idea what I'm doing", to "yes, I'm ready for that baby!"

She was right. The nature of parenting has sure changed since my midwife, now a grandmother, had her first baby. Increasingly, parenting has been turning into one giant risk-assessment exercise, in which managing or micro-managing your child's safety by removing anything that could possibly be posing a danger is top priority. Today's world isn't the world you grew up in, and pregnancy will absolutely give you a "taste" of that, one that will perfectly prepare you for the remaining 18 years of your unborn child's life.

When your mother was pregnant with you, and mine with me, they knew that they should not be getting drunk and ought to be eating healthy foods, but their pregnancies didn't come with ginormous lists of banned food items like yours now does.

Welcome To Pregnancy 'Law School': Here Are Your Food Rules

First off, pathogens. Listeria monocytogenes and Toxoplasma gondii are the major ones, because they could, together, potentially lead to miscarriage, preterm birth, blindness, hearing loss, intellectual disabilities, and even the death of your baby. Pregnant women, the Food and Drug Administration warns, should avoid raw or undercooked meat, poultry, and shellfish, pate, and smoked meats, along with unpasteurized milk and cheeses. Due to numerous other pathogens, you also need to make very sure you wash your fresh vegetables very carefully, avoid leaving foods out at room temperature for any length of time, avoid unpasteurized fruit juices, raw eggs, and even, according to some, any store-bought fresh foods such as sandwiches. 

Next up, well, let's delve into the complicated world of fish. Eating fish during pregnancy is incredibly healthy and may even, new research suggests, decrease the risk that your child will have autism. However, you know all about the risks of mercury-laden fish, so stay away from shark, swordfish, or marlin, and limit your consumption of tuna and tilefish, among others, to just twice a week. Some oily fish, like mackerel, contain rather high levels of vitamin A, too much of which can be detrimental as well. Again, guidelines say, stick to just twice a week. Some pregnant women, having heard that fish can pose risks, simply avoid it altogether.

READ Should You Have Your Baby Screened For Genetic Diseases During Pregnancy?

Caffeine may increase your miscarriage risk, no amount of alcohol has been deemed safe for consumption during pregnancy and your child may just get Fetal Alcohol Syndrome from that one glass of wine you once had, eating peanuts may (or may not) boost your child's risk of serious food allergies, and by the way, you better eat all-organic if you really want your baby to have the best start in life. Too much sugar is bad, too much salt is bad, too much processed food is bad.

Bad, bad, bad.

What's The Cost Of 'Just To Be On The Safe Side'?

There have always been old wives' tales about pregnancy nutrition. People were telling expectant mothers what to eat long before humans even knew what nutrients were. One popular tale that pops up in various cultures, for instance, is the one in which eating spicy foods will give you a child with a quick temper.

As we learned more about nutrition, bacteria, and fetal development and research into the effects of eating and drinking all kinds of different things during pregnancy emerged, we started getting into the territory already described on the last page — suddenly, it seemed like more foods were dangerous than safe during pregnancy.

If you're pregnant or have recently been, you know how annoying this "food policing" has become. Indeed, pregnant women are increasingly treated as though they're brainless incubators unable to put anything in their mouth without consulting their doctors or the internet, because they obviously don't know what they're doing.

Still... it's worth it, isn't it, because it keeps your baby safe? Perhaps not.

READ UTIs during pregnancy are they dangerous?

Let's see:

1. A Spanish study published in 2016 showed that eating fish every week benefits fetal brain health and could even decrease their risk of ending up with autism. Eating three to four portions of fish a week gives your baby a higher IQ, the study said, adding that there were actually no signs that the mercury levels had any adverse effects.

2. The largest single outbreak of listeriosis in the US took place in 2011, when 147 individuals were infected, causing 33 deaths and a miscarriage across 28 states. The infection was traced back to a single farm and was linked solely to the consumption of cantaloupe.

3. It is true that no amount of alcohol has been proven to be "safe" during pregnancy. However, a study published in the British Journal of Obstetrics and Gynaecology in 2006 also shows that there is no compelling proof that low to moderate alcohol intake (moderate intake being defined as 10.5 units a week here, not in a single day though) has any adverse effects.

Different studies can and do, as you see, reach different conclusions. It's the most alarmist of them that we tend to read about in the press. Yes, the risks of consuming "banned" items during pregnancy are real, but a lot lower than we've been led to believe. Yes, you need to apply common sense — but is more than that necessary? Perhaps not, after all. You don't lose the ability to think for yourself when you're pregnant, something some segments of society would do well to acknowledge.