Foods that a pregnant woman should avoid completely to protect her child from deformity and herself from miscarriage
Pregnancy and nutritional infection: listeriosis and toxoplasmosis
Listeriosis and toxoplasmosis are two types of food poisoning that rarely affect healthy adults. However, pregnant women are more likely to contract this infection, because pregnancy affects their immune system, causing some changes. If this infection affects a pregnant woman, the consequences can be serious.
What are the signs of food poisoning?
Listeriosis can cause flu-like symptoms in pregnant women (such as fever, chills, fatigue, headache, muscle or joint aches) and sometimes nausea, vomiting, cramping, diarrhea or constipation.
These symptoms usually appear 3 to 30 days after eating contaminated food, but they can also appear within 70 days. While most people infected with toxoplasmosis do not show any symptoms.
If symptoms appear, they are similar to those associated with influenza or mononucleosis: muscle aches, swollen lymph glands, fatigue, headache, fever, and sometimes sore throat.
Effects of Listeriosis and Toxoplasmosis:
If a pregnant woman gets listeriosis, she may miscarry, have a stillbirth, or may even give birth prematurely. The bacteria that cause the infection (Listeria monocytogenes: Listeria monocytogenes) may be passed on to the fetus.
It may cause serious infections of the brain or blood (encephalitis, meningitis, or septicemia). As for toxoplasmosis, it can pose a threat to the fetus in rare cases.
In fact, a pregnant woman can pass the toxoplasmosis microbe to the fetus through the placenta. The possibility of transmission of the microbe increases during the last three months of pregnancy. However, the effect of this disease on the baby becomes more serious if the infection is infected at the beginning of pregnancy.
In more serious cases, toxoplasmosis can lead to miscarriage or stillbirth, or it may seriously affect the surviving child (eg, causing convulsions, enlargement of the liver or spleen, and acute eye infections).
How to prevent listeriosis and toxoplasmosis:
Certain foods pose a high risk of transmitting listeriosis, toxoplasmosis or other food infections, such as salmonella or E. coli. Therefore, it is best for women to avoid taking it during pregnancy.
Foods to avoid during pregnancy:
- Raw or undercooked eggs and any foods that contain them (eg: homemade Caesar dressing).
- Unpasteurized dairy products (such as milk and cheese made from unpasteurized milk).
- Soft cheeses (eg: Brie and Camembert) and semi-hard cheeses (eg Saint Paul) as well as blue cheeses, feta, goats and cream cheeses, even if these cheeses are made from pasteurized milk, are also at risk of transmitting listeriosis.
- Not washed Fresh fruits and vegetables that have .
- Raw meat, for example meat prepared on the tartar method.
- Raw fish and seafood, including crustaceans and mollusks (oysters and clams). You should also avoid eating sushi, sashimi, tartare, gravlax, and ceviche made with raw fish, as well as smoked fish that has not been cooked or reheated (such as smoked salmon).
- Meat, poultry, fish and seafood that has not been thoroughly cooked, including smoked sausage or sausage that has not been reheated.
- Uncured cold cuts, pre-sliced meats (eg: pork for sandwiches), paté, and refrigerated spreads.
- Liver meat. Although it is an excellent source of iron, it contains a lot of vitamin A.
- Raw sprouts, such as alfalfa and bean sprouts.
- Ready-to-eat foods that are prepared in grocery stores and displayed on the counter (such as pasta salads and shredded chicken).
- Unsterilized fruit or vegetable juices (such as apple juice), unless they are fresh, prepared at home, or extracted through a juicer, provided that they are drunk immediately afterwards.
- Kombucha.