I wish someone would explain this to my in-laws, who had an absolute shit fit over the SIP of wine that I had at dinner one night (in my third trimester - and it was a SIP - it barely even wet my lips), and nearly gave birth to their own cows when I expressed interest in a SMALL half-glass of sparkling wine at that same dinner. I ended up not having that half-glass because I didn’t feel like dealing with them (and it had been okayed by my midwife to have a small glass of wine a week…).
The cheese thing has been drilled into me from the beginning, but it’s soft cheeses, unpasteurized. The only unpasteurized cheese I’ve found is my favorite triple-cream Brie from Trader Joe’s, and it may be pasteurized, we just didn’t see it on the label.
I haven’t avoided lunchmeat, or tuna, but I’ve limited tuna to once a week when I do have it (usually in the form of a Subway sub).
My mantra has basically been ‘everything in moderation’ (except Twinkies) .
Oh, and I don’t change the litterbox, but ElzaHub was doing that before I got pregnant anyway.
Didn’t change anything here. Once I knew I stopped most drinking (I have had about 4 half glasses of wine over the course of the pregnancy) and that was about it.
I was a bad girl and had sushi a couple of times (just couldn’t go 9 months without it). I also haven’t run across any unpasterized cheeses.
The caffeine wasn’t an issue, as I can’t drink much more that the “recommended safe” amount without getting twitchy anyways.
Kept up with the exercise and especially running (I ran a leg of a road race relay at 6 months) and I plan to go for a run (okay, shuffle) today at 32 weeks. This has sent my mother-in-law into extreme panic mode. She’s convinced I’m harming the baby with every step, and nothing can convince her otherwise. I figure if my doctor isn’t concerned, no one else should be either.
No i did not avoid the no no’s. I continued cleaning the litter box, and as always washed my hands and arms afterwards. I did reduce my alcohol intake to maybe one or two glasses of wine a week. Beer tasted horrible until I was 9 1/2 months, then one day I just had to have a cold one and no way was anyone going to call me out on it. Don’t mess with a very pregnant woman during a heat wave.
Its one of my pet peeves as well. I hate it when women spend seven months worrying because “I didn’t know I was pregnant and had a glass of wine.” Or when the pregnancy cops freak when you take a sip from your husband’s or friends glass (I think a pregnant woman would be nuts to drink in public these days). And I really dislike it when people freak out over the red wine reduction served over food - or the little bit of alcohol in the tiramisu. (Don’t want to consume it, fine, but please don’t make it my problem with an extended rant over dinner about how people have no consideration for pregnant women and they should make a non-alcoholic tiramisu and how dare they use alcohol in their cooking don’t they realize there is a pregnant woman in the building!!!)
That’s been my approach so far. But I must say I was a little uneasy about it until I read this:
I did not know that! Excellent! Thank you for spelling that out for me.
Also great information. I eat a very balanced diet – make my own whole wheat bread, eat spinach like it’s going out of style, and lurve orange juice. That said, I will probably stock up on prenatal vitamins just to be sure.
I’m much relieved about the cheese thing – I’ll get the details from my doctor, but very encouraging to think that I won’t have to necessarily forgo them entirely. I hate lunch meats and don’t smoke, so that’s easy enough to avoid. I’ve had cats my entire life so probably have been exposed already to toxoplasmosis. I don’t drink a whole lot and cutting it out entirely or just scaling back to the occasional glass won’t be a problem – I’ll mostly miss that wine-tasting evenings I have with some friends every other months or so. Those are the times I get quite tipsy.
The tough ones are going to be caffeine (oh for a morning coffee!), sushi and oysters on the half-shell.
So what’s the deal with steak? Is medium OK, or does it have to be done more than that?
This is my first pregnancy, so I guess I’ve been more paranoid than most. . .
As soon as we started trying to conceive, I stopped cleaning the litter box. I did get tested to see if I’d already been exposed to toxoplasmosis, but after a false positive that showed I had a current infection (the doctor said that if I had been pregnant then, I would have to terminate the pregnancy), I got two negative tests in a row. Frankly, I wish I had been exposed before, as it would be one less thing to worry about. So I don’t garden either, and I’m really careful with raw meat (washing repeatedly, bleaching countertops, etc.). Apparently more people contract toxoplasmosis from raw meat than cat feces.
I also gave up alcohol when we started trying to get pregnant (this wasn’t a huge sacrifice to me as I only drank a few drinks a month anyway) - luckily it didn’t take long though.
After I found out that I was pregnant, I also cut out deli meat and soft cheese. I was so excited to find hard, pastuerized feta cheese at the grocery store. I missed that more than alcohol. I still don’t eat feta in restaurants, just in case. I also don’t eat Caesar salad in restaurants (raw egg in the dressing).
Like I said, I’m way too cautious, because I also don’t eat food cooked with alcohol, such as beer-battered fish or meat with a whiskey-based sauce, etc. I read in one of my pregnancy books (sorry, can’t remember which one) that it takes 2 hours of cooking to evaporate 80% of the alcohol. I’m not sure if this is true or not, but my husband’s more paranoid than I am, so it’s not worth stressing him out over an order of onion rings.
A recent “no-no” - bagged prewashed salad. I only found out about the e coli risks a couple of weeks ago. So now I end up buying hydroponically grown lettuce and washing it myself. I can’t wait until this baby’s born so I can stop worrying about what I put in my mouth! (I know, I’ll have a million other things to worry about then.)
Errr…I had one or two Cokes a day from the first tri until last week, and I’m about to give birth. The only reason I quit drinking caffeine is because I’ve had problems with restless legs, and noticed a pattern of it after I’d had a Coke, so I cut them out of my diet (and my restless legs have gotten much better). Everything I’ve read says that you can have up to 200 mg of caffeine a day without doing any harm - so about 2 1/2 cups of coffee. I don’t quite get cutting out caffeine completely (especially with that first trimester fatigue…I never would have made it through without some sort of caffeine in the morning). There’ve been some studies that MAY link it to first trimester miscarriage, but they were outrageously high amounts of caffeine, like 500 mg a day.
I’ve been eating mine medium rare this whole time :o . But again, I don’t have steak very often. If I had it more than the once every couple of months that I do, I’d probably cook it medium.
As far as I know, medium steak should be just fine. I’ve never heard otherwise.
And you don’t have to cut caffeine out entirely (unless it bothers you, of course) I believe the recommendation is no more that 4 8oz cups of coffee a day. (keeping in mind that no one drinks an 8oz coffee anymore…but it does mean you can likely have one large coffee a day and stay well within the current guidelines)
::peeks in to check for flames from last night’s post::
Phew.
Yep. Again, check with your doctor about anything specific you’re worried about. But I had a scare with WhyKid: I was taking Provera (not Depo-Provera, Provera’s different) which is well known for causing birth defects. I was so freaked out, because I took them to regulate my menses, six pills or so and then I’d menstruate. Only I was pregnant, so I didn’t menstruate. Which meant I took six pills within a week of conceiving, when I didn’t know it yet. He reassured me that the timing couldn’t have been better: WhyKid was still floating around in a happy little disconnected bubble, and wasn’t exposed to the drug. He then said the same is true of alcohol and drugs and joked that it was a good thing, since so many babies are concieved when the mother is imbibing!
Here’s a fairly comprehensive list of caffeine content, if you do decide to indulge in that morning coffee. As you can probably guess, I’m not a fan of forced abstinence here, either. I do counsel Starbuck’s addicts to switch to decaf if they’re going to continue their 4- grande a day habit, but a single small cup of the real stuff won’t do any damage.
The problem with all of this “small to moderate amounts won’t hurt” is that it makes doctor’s glance nervously at their malpractice insurance. If a patient interprets “moderate” as 6 cups of coffee, a pack of smokes and a six pack every day, then of course Bad Things might happen. So the doctors tell us to avoid it all so there’s no risk of being misinterpreted.
On the toxo angle: there is a blood test your doctor can do BEFORE you get pregnant to see if you’ve already got toxo antibodies in you. If you do, you’re fine and can clean the cat box and garden to your heart’s content. It’s only if you’re clean now and get toxo while pregnant that it’s dangerous. A pre-existing case of toxo isn’t dangerous, and it’s pretty likely that you already have it.
Oh, the other thing to remember about coffee is that the darker the bean, the **less **caffeine. A light breakfast blend has a lot of caffeine; a super dark Columbian roast has much less. So drink dark and use lots of milk in your one latte a day!
I will get that scheduled ASAP. Thanks for the info.
Oh, and the coffee we have is that Trader Joe’s super-dark roast, so it looks like it should be fine. The mix is half a mug of frothed milk with a shot’s worth of coffee, which seems to be in the OK-zone. I don’t drink soda or anything else with caffeine. Who knew I had so many good habits? Ha ha.
I think the steak thing has to do with toxioplasmosis, which can be carried in rare meat.
BTW, do you have an OB? Cause I loved mine (the clinic also did my infertility), am in the Twin Cities, and he catches his own babies (an important criteria for me). Oh, and while OJ is good for folic acid, it is bad if you turn out to be prone to gestational diabeties - juice is mainlining sugar - moderation is the key in pregnancy in all things.
jbarro - you aren’t too cautious if you are comfortable. But its good to be informed so that if you do discover that the cake had Kahlua in it, you don’t freak out - my own belief is that the stress is worse for the baby than the trace alcohol. (By the way, vanilla extract also has alcohol in it. If you worry over beer battered onion rings, you might want to skip the creme brulee and chocolate chip cookies as well. Maybe best not to let the husband know and just keep it between us girls).
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I can’t wait until this baby’s born so I can stop worrying about what I put in my mouth! (I know, I’ll have a million other things to worry about then.)