Foods to Avoid During Pregnancy
By: Tsou JinyeuTotal Views: 149, Word Count: 679,
As a concerned parent, you would like to do everything possible to ensure the well being and safety of your baby. Thus, it’s important that you eat a well balanced diet in order to ensure that your child is given every opportunity to grow and develop normally right from the beginning. There are certain foods to avoid during pregnancy which you have to be aware of.
Remember that while your caloric needs increase slightly during pregnancy, it is not a period where you could eat everything in sight. Eating for two doesn’t mean that you must start eating twice the amount of food you usually eat. This would only make you gain more than the suggested weight gain for your size which puts you at risk for having a cesarean delivery, and would make your labor and delivery more difficult.
It’s vital that you identify the possible dangers of certain food products and avoid them during your pregnancy. The following list of pregnancy foods to avoid includes foods which might make you sick and harm the growth of your unborn baby.
Foods to Avoid During Pregnancy
There are numerous foods that might pose a risk to your baby. These foods to avoid in pregnancy include:
- Raw meat such as seafood, sushi, rare or uncooked beef or poultry because of the risk of contamination with toxoplasmosis, coliform bacteria and salmonella.
- Raw eggs or foods containing raw egg such as Caesar dressing, homemade ice cream or custard, mayonnaise, unpasteurized eggnog or hollandaise sauce as raw eggs might be contaminated with salmonella.
- Soft cheese like feta, blue cheese, camembert, brie and Latin American soft white cheeses such as queso fresco and queso blanco as they could harbor harmful bacteria.
- Fish comprising accumulated levels of mercury in their fatty tissues such as swordfish, shark, king mackerel and tilefish. When a pregnant woman eats large amounts of mercury, her baby could suffer brain damage resulting in developmental delays (for e.g. delays in learning to walk or talk).
- Fish comprising high levels of an industrial contaminant known as polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) in their fatty tissues such as striped bass, bluefish, freshwater fish such as salmon, pike, walleye, trout from polluted lakes and rivers. As per the March of Dimes, eating large amounts of PCBs by pregnant women is associated to decreased attention, memory and IQ in their babies. It’s also advisable to check with your local health department to decide which fishes in your area are safe to eat.
- Minimize the amount of liver intake. As per the March of Dimes, animal liver possess very high levels of vitamin A. While vitamin A is good for you, women who eat too much might risk a higher incidence of birth defects in their babies. Since you’re possibly already taking prenatal vitamins and eating other vitamin A containing foods, it’s better to be safe and not consume liver on a regular basis.
Thus, pregnant women should be very careful in what they eat and must take care about the foods to avoid during pregnancy; so that it doesn’t harm them as well as their baby in future.
About the Author
John Sterling is a professional Weight Management specialist. He is based in Sydney and provides private consultation to pregnant women, obese men, women, children, and also those who want to stay fit with regular exercising.
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