Diet taboos in early pregnancy

Those that are clearly toxic, teratogenic, easy to cause food-borne infections, and will definitely make you uncomfortable if you eat them, and most of the rest only need to be eaten in moderate amounts, and there is no need to set strict taboos at all.

Let’s start with the types that are completely non-negotiable and should not be touched at all. Whether it is traditional Chinese medicine or Western medicine, no matter which school’s obstetrics guideline it is, it is clearly not recommended to touch this part. The first is all raw and half-cooked foods, including soft-boiled eggs, steaks under medium rare, sashimi, drunken shrimps and crabs, freshly squeezed milk that has not been pasteurized, homemade fermented pickles, homemade fruit wine and rice wine. These foods can easily carry Listeria and Salmonella. Ordinary people may have diarrhea for a few days after being infected. However, the immunity in early pregnancy is weak. Once infected, it can easily lead to fetal arrest and malformation. There is really no need to take risks because the risk is too high. I met a pregnant mother in the obstetrics clinic before. She felt that the wine she brewed at home was clean and replenishing her vitality and blood. After drinking less than half a cup, her lower abdomen became tight for two days in a row. Not to mention tobacco and alcohol, including second-hand smoke, alcoholic foods such as wine-filled chocolates and fermented glutinous rice dumplings (if you want to eat them, boil them until the alcohol has completely evaporated and then eat a small amount, it’s not a big deal), as well as food that is definitely moldy and spoiled. Don’t think it’s a pity to throw it away. If you eat it bad, the gain outweighs the gain.

Speaking of this, someone must ask, can the coffee, iced drinks, and spicy hot pot that the elders in the family talk about every day be touched? This part is actually quite controversial, with different opinions differing quite a bit. For example, the traditional view of ice food is that "coldness" will harm the fetus and lead to miscarriage due to uterine cold. The view of Western medicine is that ice food only has a low temperature and will heat up the stomach when it enters the stomach. It cannot touch the uterus at all. The only risk is that it stimulates the gastrointestinal tract and causes diarrhea. Severe diarrhea may induce uterine contractions. When I was vomiting in the first trimester, I relied on iced Coke and popsicles to suppress my nausea. I ate one popsicle a day until I was three months old. The prenatal check-up gave me the green light, and my baby was born healthy. ； But the pregnant mother in my ward has a weak gastrointestinal tract. She usually has diarrhea even after drinking cold mineral water. She ate half a popsicle for two days in the first trimester and almost had problems. So there is no unified answer to this part. You can eat it if you feel comfortable, and don’t touch it if you don’t feel comfortable. Don’t listen to others saying, "Everyone else can eat it, so why can’t you?" Individual differences are inherently huge. The same goes for coffee. The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists has clearly stated that it is safe to consume no more than 200mg of caffeine per day, which is about the amount of one medium cup of American coffee, or two cups of instant, or three cups of ordinary milk tea. If you have the habit of drinking coffee and will not feel flustered or insomnia after drinking it, you can drink a small cup every day to refresh yourself. If you feel uncomfortable after drinking coffee, of course there is no need to drink it. As for spicy food, you are more flexible. As long as you usually eat spicy food, you won't get stomachache or constipation. If you want to eat hot pot or skewers, it's absolutely fine. If you usually get angry when you encounter a little spicy food, then of course it's more comfortable to eat something lighter.

There are also those "pseudo taboos" that are so popular that they can really be ignored. For example, eating crabs will cause miscarriage, eating hawthorn will cause miscarriage, eating rabbit meat will cause cleft lip, and eating soy sauce will cause babies to turn black. These are all rumors without any scientific basis. A while ago, a pregnant mother sent me a private message and said she didn’t know she was pregnant. She ate two bunches of candied haws, and she cried all afternoon and asked me if I should go to the hospital. I really didn’t know whether to laugh or cry - hawthorn does have ingredients that stimulate uterine contractions, but to reach the amount that can trigger miscarriage, you have to eat more than ten kilograms of fresh hawthorn at one time. The content of two bunches of candied haws is not enough to make you frown, and it has no effect at all. The same is true for crabs. When my colleague was 8 weeks pregnant, she was greedy for hairy crabs. She ate three of them in one meal and nothing happened. There are indeed cases of accidents caused by eating crabs. Most of them are caused by acute gastroenteritis caused by stale crabs, or there are signs of threatened miscarriage. The attack happens to happen after eating crabs, so the blame is passed on to the crabs. As for hare lips and dark skin, they are all the result of the combined effect of genes and external teratogenic factors. They have nothing to do with what you eat.

When I was pregnant with my first child, I was very pregnant in the first three months. I vomited after looking at chicken soup, bird's nest, and milk powder for pregnant women. I relied on hot and sour noodles, soda crackers, and ice sparkling water to survive. I lost 5 pounds in the first three months. My mother-in-law was very anxious at first, saying that I was eating my baby like this. Later, I took her to consult the prenatal doctor. The doctor said that the fetus in the first trimester is no bigger than a grape and needs very few nutrients. Your own body reserves are enough for it. You can eat whatever you can. It is better than not eating anything until you starve.

In fact, to put it bluntly, diet in the first trimester really doesn’t have to be like taking a college entrance examination, checking off a long list of taboos one by one, until you have to worry about what to eat for a long time, but instead become anxious to the point of affecting your state. There are only two core principles: make sure what you eat is safe first, and make the rest as comfortable as possible. If you are really not sure, just ask the doctor casually during your next prenatal check-up. It is much more reliable than searching online for a long time and getting more and more panicked~