Foods to Avoid While Pregnant

Just because you’re experiencing an unplanned pregnancy doesn’t mean that you can’t take care of yourself and this growing baby. Whether you choose to parent or place your baby, you should be eating well during this time. Your baby needs good nutrition to grow. You need good nutrition to stay afloat in order to deal with the physical demands of pregnancy and the emotional demands of dealing with this situation.

So how do you eat healthy while pregnant?

First and foremost, there are some foods you should avoid. It seems awfully pessimistic to talk about those first but it is also important. (Soon I’ll talk about foods you can, or should, be eating.) Unfortunately, if you google “foods to avoid while pregnant,” you’ll get a large number of links, some with contradictory information. None of them present it in a very easy to read format either. And so, here we go.

1. Fish with mercury or caught by your uncle/brother/dad. Fish with high levels of mercury include Swordfish, shark, tilefish, king mackerel, limit canned albacore tuna fish. You should avoid these because mercury may be detrimental to the brain development of the baby. Eating fish caught by your uncle/brother/dad (or any recreational fisherman) may be contaminated with bacteria. While that may be fine when you’re not pregnant, you need to be especially careful when pregnant.

2. Raw or undercooked meat, poultry, seafood and eggs. These things may contain bacteria or viruses that you do not want to expose the baby to while they are forming vital organs. This includes sushi and cookie/cake dough/batter. (Don’t lick the spoon!)

3. Hot dogs and lunch meat. What? These products can create listeria monocytogenes which creates the bacteria listeriosis. What’s scary about that bacteria? It can lead to miscarriage.

4. Unpastuerized dairy foods (or, really anything that is unpasteurized, including juice.) Unpasteurized dairy foods can have the same harmful listeriosis. Unpasteurized juices, like cider bought from a road side stand, are prone to nasty things like E. coli. Avoid these things.

5. Alcohol. This one is self-explanatory.

6. Certain herbal teas and supplements. Raspberry leaf tea is believed to induce labor by some midwives. Don’t drink it until after the 39th week!

There’s always the argument against caffeine as well. Some doctors say that you shouldn’t consume any caffeine while pregnant. Others believe that a few cups aren’t going to do you any harm. I think all would agree that drinking large volumes of caffeinated soda or coffee won’t do either you or the baby any good. The key with caffeine is to use it in moderation. A cup of coffee in the morning to get you going shouldn’t do any harm.

Be sure to discuss this topic with your healthcare provider. Furthermore, be sure to avoid any foods to which you are allergic during your pregnancy! A healthy mommy leads to a healthy baby!

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