Foods to Avoid During Pregnancy – A Comprehensive Guide

Pregnancy is the most critical period in a woman’s life. She must take extra care of herself for the sake of her baby. Once you find out that you are pregnant, there are many aspects of your lifestyle that have to be changed as they may affect the health and development of your child. Foods and beverages you consume are one of the main things that will impact you and your baby. So, what are the foods to avoid during pregnancy? Let us find out the right pregnancy food in this article.

Some Crazy Facts About Pregnancy You Must Know

• After about four months into the pregnancy, your baby starts to drink its own pee. In fact, it will urinate up to 1 litre per day!
• You are not only growing a baby in your womb, but you are developing a whole new organ called the placenta. This organ can grow 50 km long blood vessels.
• Babies do not start crying when they enter the world, but they practice it even when they are inside you.
• You can get pregnant when you are already pregnant!
• The hormone relaxin is responsible for softening your pelvis and hip bones to ease the opening for baby birth. However, this may even cause you to break your bone.
• Your baby growing in the womb has the ability to heal you! When you have a damaged organ, your baby will send the stem cells to heal it.
• Over time, your uterus grows 500 times the original size which is equivalent to a small peach.
• Your heart grows in size to pump more blood for the baby within you. In fact, your body will hold more blood resulting in bleeding gums and noses during pregnancy.
• When you are approaching your due date and still haven’t had any contractions, having an orgasm can help you get them!
• It is a fact that your baby is born with lots of hair if you suffered from heartburn during pregnancy.

• Foods that You Must Avoid During Pregnancy

  Pregnancy is a time when most women get cravings for a variety of foods. Every woman has different levels of desires. Some even have the weirdest kind of craving, for instance, wanting to eat sand! Of course, it is unreasonable to eat anything and everything when you are carrying a baby. You must look after the nutritional value that you are intaking for your and your baby’s health. Here are some of the foods to avoid during pregnancy. You can even take note of certain foods to avoid in the first month of pregnancy too.

  1. Fishes

  Certain large marine fishes can accumulate a high amount of mercury in them. Mercury is a harmful chemical that may cause developmental issues in children. This compound is found in high concentration in polluted seawater. For this reason, you must be careful when you are consuming fish, especially Tuna, Swordfish, king mackerel and sharks.

  In addition to that, while you are consuming fish, make sure that you steer clear of raw, undercooked fishes like shellfish. These may cause various health issues that may be bacterial or viral. The most fatal condition that this could cause is called Listeria infection, caused by Listeria bacteria, that can prove fatal for the baby.

  2. Caffeine

  Caffeine is something that a pregnant woman must take as less as 200 mg per day. Caffeine is easily absorbed in your body and passed on to your child in the placenta. As they do not have an enzyme that digests this compound, it builds up in your baby. This causes low birth weight, type 2 diabetes when they grow up or even infant death!

  3. Meat

  Processed, raw or undercooked meat that of poultry, pork, beef, lamb is harmful to pregnant women. They carry a host of bacterias and other parasites that may lead to health issues in your unborn child such as blindness, disability, epilepsy and so on. Processed meat such as hot dogs, meat patty and others must be totally avoided as they may contain infectious microbes too!

  4. Raw Eggs

  This is considered as the most important food to avoid in the first month of pregnancy! Raw eggs could be infected with bacteria like Salmonella. This bacteria may result in symptoms like nausea, vomiting, fever and even stomach cramps that may lead to the premature birth of the child. For this reason, you must, at all cost, avoid consuming raw eggs and any dishes that have it, such as cake icing, scrambled eggs, ice cream, mayonnaise, salad dressings and sauces.

  5. Organ Meat

  Although organs are filled with rich nutrients like copper, vitamin B12, iron and vitamin A, you must make sure that you do not have vitamin A from animal organs like liver, heart, brain and others. This will lead to Vitamin A toxicity, high levels of copper in the blood leading to liver toxicity and defects in the baby.

• 6. Raw Sprouts

  Raw sprouts are usually infected by Salmonella. The moist and humid conditions in which these seeds sprout is also a good environment for these bacterias to grow in. And no matter how much you wash them, traces of the bacterias will be left behind. For this reason, even if you wish to consume raw sprouts, make sure you cook it well.

  7. Unpasteurized Cheese, Milk, Fruit Juices

  Raw milk, cheese and fruit juices are hosts to a variety of bacterias like Listeria, Campylobacter, Salmonella, E. coli and more! These are sure to harm babies in the worst ways possible even before they are born. It is some of the important foods to avoid during early pregnancy, after you deliver until you are breastfeeding. For this reason, before you consume any of these, make sure they are pasteurized.

  8. Alcohol

  This is one of the drinks to avoid during pregnancy at all cost. Alcohol is said to cause miscarriage and premature birth of babies. Even a slight amount of alcohol is enough to reduce baby development, intellectual disabilities, cause heart defects and deformities. These symptoms are collectively known as a health condition – fetal alcohol syndrome. For this reason, avoid alcohol altogether until you give birth and breastfeed.

  Fruits to Avoid During Pregnancy

  While some fruits like papayas, pineapple, dates can induce contractions leading to the premature birth of the babies, certain fruits like watermelon, bananas make it to this list because of the sugar and other content in these fruits that may worsen gestational diabetes. On the other hand, rich Vitamin C content of tamarind may hinder the production of the hormone – progesterone. This will lead to premature birth or worse, cell damage in the developing fetus.

  Indian Foods to Avoid During Pregnancy

  Certain Indian street food that contains a high amount of spices must be avoided when you are pregnant. Although you are craving something too spicy such as samosas, Pani puri, Dahi Bhalla, tikkis, Kathi rolls, chowmein and more, you must avoid them because they may end up giving you stomach problems leading to pregnancy complications. In addition, when you are preparing pakoras, make sure to add salt in a moderate amount. When you are pregnant, you must make sure to avoid anything that has high salt content. This includes those mouth-watering pickles too!