Pregnancy dietary taboos

There are only 4 types that really need to be strictly avoided 100% - any alcoholic drinks, undercooked meat/eggs/aquatic products, unpasteurized raw milk/soft cheese, and high-risk ingredients that clearly contain teratogenic toxins (such as raw cassava, wild puffer fish, sprouted potatoes). The rest of the so-called "can't eat" mostly depends on personal physique and intake. There is no one-size-fits-all unified standard.

The last time I accompanied my cousin for a pre-pregnancy check-up, she had just had a party with friends the week before and drank two bottles of low-alcohol fruit wine and ate sashimi from a Japanese restaurant. She was very panicked when she received the report. The doctor specifically emphasized to her that these four categories are dead lines without any room for negotiation. Let’s talk about alcohol first. The WHO has long made it clear that there is no “safe intake amount for pregnancy preparation”. Whether it is liquor, beer, fruit wine, or alcoholic sparkling water, it may interfere with the development of sperm and eggs. In severe cases, it may even increase the risk of early miscarriage. Don’t gamble on the chance that “a little drink will be fine.” Then there are undercooked foods, medium-rare steaks, runny soft-boiled eggs, raw pickles from Internet celebrity stores, and sashimi that have not been cryogenically frozen. If you are infected with Salmonella, Anisakis, or have a fever and stomach upset, many medicines cannot be used during pregnancy preparation. Not to mention the suffering, if you are not aware of it when you are just pregnant, the infection may affect the development of the embryo. No matter how good your physique is, don't touch it. There are also unpasteurized fresh cheeses and freshly squeezed raw milk made in private workshops. The risk of Listeria infection is very high, and it is particularly lethal in the early stages of pregnancy. Avoid it if you can.

You must have heard of the sayings like "You can't drink coffee", "You can't eat ice", "You can't eat spicy food" and "You can't eat soy products" when preparing for pregnancy, right? These are actually half right and half wrong, and doctors from different schools of thought have different advice. Take coffee as an example. Many traditional gynecologists in China will recommend quitting it altogether for fear of caffeine fluctuations in hormone levels. However, the guidelines of the American Society for Reproductive Medicine clearly state that consuming no more than 200mg of caffeine per day (about the amount of one medium cup of American coffee, or two small cups of instant coffee) will have no impact on pregnancy preparation. Several of my Internet friends couldn't give up coffee when they were preparing for pregnancy. They drank half a cup of latte every day, and all the babies they gave birth to were healthy. On the contrary, some people became irritable because of the forced quitting of coffee. They couldn't sleep well for most of the month, and their hormones were disrupted.

The elders’ favorite refrain, “You can’t eat ice or spicy food,” even varies from person to person. My colleague is a girl from the Northeast. She has been eating popsicles in the winter since she was a child. She also continued to eat popsicles when she was preparing for pregnancy. The prenatal check-up gave the green light. The baby weighed more than eight pounds and was very strong. But if you usually get diarrhea when you eat ice cream, or get acne and constipation when you eat spicy food, then you must eat less during pregnancy preparation. It is not bad for the baby, but it is you who suffers. The gastrointestinal discomfort affects the absorption of nutrients, and the gain outweighs the gain. It is also said that eating soy products will kill sperm, which is even more ridiculous. To reach the amount that can affect hormones, you have to eat dozens of kilograms of soybeans a day. You usually drink a cup of soy milk and eat a piece of tofu. The soy isoflavones are not enough to see, but are friendly to the female endometrium. Unless you have breast nodules and high estrogen problems, you can ask a doctor to evaluate whether you need to control the amount.

Before I prepared for pregnancy, I also kept a photo album full of "pregnancy taboo lists". I couldn't eat watermelons, couldn't touch crabs, and even gave up milk tea. I ate very little for half a month and was in a very bad mood. Later, I went to the nutrition department. The doctor looked at my list and laughed for a long time. He said, you are not preparing for pregnancy, you are a monk. As long as you avoid those four categories that must not be touched, you can eat whatever you want. A balanced diet of meat, eggs, milk, vegetables and fruits is better than anything else. Thinking about it now, my best friend is from Hunan. When she was preparing for pregnancy, she was always eating spicy food and never avoided eating it. The baby's skin was very white when she was born, and she didn't have the "heat" or "fetal poison" problems that the elders said.

In fact, the biggest taboo when preparing for pregnancy is not eating the wrong thing, but being too anxious. Going through the taboo list every day to dig out details, feeling guilty for a long time if you take more than one mouthful of milk tea, being so stressed that you can't sleep well, which will affect endocrine, making it harder to get pregnant. If you really encounter food that you are unsure about, don’t search blindly on the Internet. Ask your attending doctor directly. Everyone’s constitution and physical condition are different. The rules that suit others may not suit you. The most important thing is to eat happily and feel comfortable.