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.