Do Japanese Women Eat Sushi, Do French Women Eat Soft Cheese/Pate

[tutmae]

I make my own sushi at home and generally have avocado and cucumber ones, sometimes with chicken. DH thinks it's ridiculous that there are so many rules for us pg women to follow "just in case". I'm not flout the rules ridiculously, but I'm not super dooper strict either. I think I was craving a ham sandich a few weeks ago andd had one. I think the stress can sometimes be more harmful than letting yourself have a little bit of something "naughty".

[Astrid]

I followed my gut with foods and I found it served me well. One occasion I looked at a whole table of food and just went I can't eat any of that. I was right, everyone else got food poisoning. I was 6 weeks pregnant at the time and very thankful I went with my initial reaction to seeing the food. I still ate what I wanted after that, but always followed my instinct, so sometimes I would have sushi and other times the look of it turned me off.

[MantaRay]

To whoever asked, the thing with runny eggs is salmonella. It can be in any egg that is not totally cooked and the same with chicken. When pg salmonella is harmful to the foetus. It is not a common problem in eggs and it doesn't grow in eggs that are refridgerated. But of course the eggs are stored for a quite a while before you buy them.

I lived in Japan for a year and sushi was usually only eaten on special occassions in the home. And it was really only eaten as often in restaurants as we would here.

[M22]

MR- i am so jealous you lived there

[MantaRay]

It was awesome LSK. I absolutely love it there.

[Tanya]

It would be interesting to know the stats for stillbirth/miscarriage caused by consuming such foods in those countries.

In fact what is the risk % if you didn't change your diet to avoid such foods?

[fionas]

I don't think it's the volume/number of times you eat those foods, it's just that there's a chance of listeria every time you do. Just as there's a chance of listeria even if you're not pregnant. Problem is that listeria is very harmful to the foetus and can cause miscarriage.

The chance of listeria/salmonella is the same whether or not you're pregnant.

I'm sure someone will come in and explain that much better than I just have.

[angelicdragon]

When Annabelle died at 31 weeks the first thign they asked was what had I eaten the last few days. I had had KFC and had had coleslaw coz I love their coleslaw. The immediate response was that she could have died of listeria. I was induced a few hours later and after 12 hrs of labour I had an emergency c sec where it was discovered she had the cord aroudn her neck and arm so it was that and not listeria. However I still had to have blood taken and tested and they also did pathology for Listeria on Annabelle.
There was also a Today Tonight segment a year or two ago about a sports star in Aus who lsot her baby sto stillbirth and tests shwoed a high mercury content. She had fish up to 3 times a week coz it was good for you but it was deep sea fish which has the highest levels.
I think you will find if you research that only certain species of fish tend to have the higher mercury so just avoid deep sea fish.

[Tanya]

I think you will find if you research that only certain species of fish tend to have the higher mercury so just avoid deep sea fish.

I think it is the larger fish... the ones that consume lots of smaller fish and have an accumlative affect? So sharks (flake) and the like

So smaller fish like sardines (and lots others... sorry too tired to think) are fine

[maz]

I wonder however how the Germans etc eat heaps of cold Salami's? they eat things like that daily over there!!! do they make Salami in their house?? maybe they do.

Metwaurst baby...not salami and the answer is yes

we also have a dish called tata and (please do not read if you have a weak stomach) is raw mince that has onion, raw eggs and spices in it eaten smeared over bread. Its eaten all the time..pg or not..along with Limburger cheese

I ate all the worng things when I was pg with Nikolaus and Vyolett (normal children) and all the right things with Wilhelm and Mateauz (special needs children).......so I think its the luck of the draw

[ss_storm]

I think when pg you are also more susceptible to food-poisoning causing bacteria, like listeria & salmonella, as your immune system is somewhat compromised. For me, well I would prefer to not take the risk of eating high risk foods, I'm sure I can live without deli meats & runny eggs for the next 6 months, however I know that if something happened to my unborn bub and I had done something that could have caused it, such as eating high risk foods, it would be a very difficult thing to overcome... they aren't rules so much as guidelines, no one says "no you definitely cannot eat this food" it's generally just recommended you don't, and its up to the individual as to whether they are prepared for that level of risk or not.

[paradise lost]

To answer the original question, yes and yes. Japanese women eat sushi and French women (in fact most mainland Europeans) eat soft cheeses, while pregnant.

The issue with fish is that LONG-LIVED fish - tuna, marlin, swordfish, shark - can have higher mercury levels in their flesh - for pregnant women the advice is the same as for everyone else - do not eat more than 2 portions of long-lived sea-fish a week. Not eating ANY fish during pregnancy can be quite dangerous if you're used to eating it because you need good sources of iodine for thyroid function in you and bubs and omega 3 fatty acids in higher amounts during pregnancy to help bubs brain develop. These things can be gotten elsewhere (iodised table salt for iodine, certain nuts and seeds for omega-3's) but if you usually get them through fish and are opting to have NO fish you need to replace them.

I don't have figures on listeria-related foetal damage or demise in France but i assure you the the French government, like MOST governments, has a public health department which acts on risk to ensure the people are safe, and they have NOT found it necessary to advise their women to avoid soft cheese.

I did not avoid anything i fancied during pregnancy except alcohol (had an immense liking for champagne at a champagne breakfast when i was 12 weeks, drank one fingerswidth of a flute to quell it, and stopped there, though it tasted so good to me, i could have had 3 glasses!). I craved sushi and i ate mountains of it, 2 or 3 packs at a time 2-6 times a week from the 11th week to the 41st. The outcome? I have a really smart child who likes fish, but that might not have been the sushi. I didn't have tuna or swordfish sushi and stuck to short-lived fish and shellfish varieties, and i tended to stick to a few supermarkets and one restaurant i trusted, but ocasionally the craving hit and i just ate the nearest sushi! I especially enjoyed raw salmon, and i still do - i will buy filets and eat the trimmings right off the raw pieces! Mmmm, just the thought!

If i'd craved vodka or coal or petrol i'd have been more careful about it, but i trust my body, i don't believe it would demand something so insistently that it didn't need, and i don't think depriving a pregnant body of something it clearly needs is wise at all.

Bx

[Shanti]

Mmmmmm Maz! Metwurst, I love Metwurst.... I walk past it in the aisle at woolies and dreewwwl! I cant' wait to buy some when i'm not PG! that stuff is the best!

I've been eating salami but ONLY when piping hot served on pizza like last night

[fionas]

Thanks Bec - the thing that 'gets' me I suppose when I think about this is that it would only take one stroke of bad luck to end up with listeria BUT at the same time, in my 39 years on the planet, I've never had listeria. So the chances of getting it if I ate the same food from the same places when non-pregnant would not actually be any higher.

Or is it possible to get listeria without actually knowing it? So maybe I'm wrong to be a bit blase about it because I could have had it multiple times without knowing?

BTW, I am NOT trying to launch an argument that everyone should be less vigilant and trying to persuade everyone to stuff themselves full of sushi and soft cheese, I'm just interested in the facts and in what other countries recommend and why.

[nelly]

I was careful first pg but both that pg and this one I have been told by midwife and ob that they give these blanket "rules" because some people just don't check the finer print. eg Pg women can have soft cheese as long as they are pasteurised and have been handled through the cold chain efficiently. Sushi is fine as long as it is from a reputable place (safe food handling) and you don't eat a lot of the long living mercury accumulating fish.

I guess everything in moderation and as someone said earlier - follow your gut instinct.

Remember that song - "fish, chips and chikko rolls, tomato sauce and sausage rolls"... I wonder if in other countries thay are told don't eat meat pies, chikko rolls and sausage rolls and those women think I wonder if Australians still eat their meat pies and sausage rolls...

[~Raven~]

but by the same token, many of the "rules" weren't around when our mothers and grandmothers were pregnant and most of us turned out just fine!

Of course you turned out fine as did I, but how many losses may have happened due to listeria or other bugs.
Guess in those days though a miscarriage was shrugged off as God's will and they had no way of figuring out what caused it to happen.

[Toomanytoomany]

When I had my first daughter twenty years ago, there was much less information about what was dangerous to eat. The "rules" on alcohol have changed, also. Research happens, findings are made, and women are informed of the risks - they can choose to take those risks, or not, I guess.

Australia has an enviable perinatal and infant mortality rate - though not, shamefully, in our indigenous population - and much of that is due to good prenatal care and information. While the listeria risk is sometimes overblown (it's actually quite uncommon) it is real, and we benefit from knowing that risk. I guess we have to ask ourselves if taking the risk is worth that sushi roll or not. Reye's syndrome is an extremely rare response to aspirin, but there are still very few of us who would give our children aspirin for a fever when paracetamol is available.

Some of us will not take the risk, some of us will - it's not silly to inform women of the risk, nor is it silly to decide not to take the risk, when there are so many alternatives. People in Australia eat a lot of pre-prepared food that has been sitting around in delis and supermarkets for a long time. People in provincial France eating raw cheeses may well be eating the produce of animals around whom they have been for many years and may be immune to all their bugs anyway. And their food may be a lot fresher, even if it is not pasteurised. (All cheese in Australia must be pasteurised, I believe.)

Similarly with alcohol, research in the last five years or so has revealed that there is no reliably safe level of alcohol consumption in pregnancy, whereas it was once believed that one or two glasses here and there was no problem. Again, you can choose to roll that dice, or just abstain for a while. Sure, many people drank during pregnancy and many babies were fine, but we don't use that line for motor vehicle restraints - so by all means be confident about taking calculated risks, but they *are* risks.

It's up to each woman to decide, but I don't see that ignorance is bliss, not when the chance of ignorance is miscarriage or stillbirth. We need to make informed decisions and be confident in them. There are no guarantees either way and it is just risk management, not thwarting a definite hazard every time we try to avoid a risk.

[Toomanytoomany]

Or is it possible to get listeria without actually knowing it? So maybe I'm wrong to be a bit blase about it because I could have had it multiple times without knowing?

Yes, it is quite possible to be exposed and asymptomatic. Pregnant women and their babies are particularly vulnerable, as are the elderly, very small children and the immunosuppressed.