It's a very interesting subject. We all seem to get told different things. I've seen 5 different doctors during my pregnancy and the list I now have between all of them is: no deli meat (I do eat ham on pizza if it's really hot, but nothing else), no cold chicken unless it's been cooked at home and eaten within 24 hours, no prepared salads (you don't know if they've been washed), no creamy salad dressings, no sauces that may contain raw egg, no soft cheeses, no soft eggs, no soft serve so that also means no thickshakes or milk shakes unless I know they use real ice cream. I think that's about it.

I stick to it pretty religiously because even though the risk is quite low, the risk is not worth taking as far as I'm concerned. A few months without certain foods is not going to kill me, but listeria could kill my baby or cause a premature birth. The thing that came as a shock to me is that it can hit you up to 70 days after contamination. I got that info from the brochure the midwife gave me. I always thought it would be a bit like getting food poisoning, you'd know soon afterwards, but apparently not.