Sushi and Pregnancy


With all the happy family Thanksgiving times, I hung out with a lot of people who were pregnant or rearing tiny babies or both. At one point the conversation slipped to the dos and donts of preggers eating habits. It was unanimously confirmed that one should not eat sushi while pregnant, as the raw fish may contain parasites or pathogens that are harmful for baby. And no fun for you, of course.

Now let’s be clear here...I am not sure if I could actually go 9 months with no sushi. I am not sure if I could go 9 months without booze, but I guess I’ll have to do that too. One day in the far far in future.

But this all made me think..why why why with the no raw fish? I know that raw shellfish, disgusting filter-feeders they are, are likely to harbor toxic bacteria, such as paralytic shellfish toxin.

But why raw fishies? Sure they can have tapeworms and other wormy parasites? But a little deep freezing will deal with that.  And come on. If you eat at a restaurant called Sushi King, aren’t you just ASKING to get salmonella? And those darned Vibrio bacteria outbreaks..well...er....isn’t it WORTH the risk? I mean honestly...wouldn’t you just die for a nice spicy tuna roll right now (can you tell I haven’t had dinner yet?).

I guess I could just eat California rolls, unagi rolls and all the vegetarian rolls I can handle. That wouldn’t be so bad. Now only to find a fetus-friendly substitute for bourbon.


Posted by Anna Gosline on November 27, 2007 at 6:24 PM in health
Comments 4 Comments   Sushi and Pregnancy   Digg

Comments

I’ve always been a little skeptical of blanket statements like “pregnant women shouldn’t eat sushi” (I bet Japanese women do all the time, and sashimi in Japan is, unlike in the U.S., not usually deep-frozen first, which is why they do have more cases of sushi-borne parasites--but not very many for a country with a population that large) and “small children shouldn’t have spicy food” (Thai, Indian, Mexican, etc. children grow up on it).  I always suspect that they come at least in part from a Western distrust of food that isn’t bland.

Personally, if I were planning on being pregnant, I’d look into whether there are any large-scale, rigorous studies on sushi and pregnancy.  I bet there are.  One might need to find someone to translate, but I bet they’re out there.

Posted on November 28, 2007 at 7:49 PM by

Mel, there really aren’t any large scale studies on raw fish and pregnancy, only anecdotal reports and accumulated outbreak reports. Listeriosis is the biggy -same reason you shouldn’t eat soft cheeses and unpasteurized dairy (though French women must have done it, eh?). Even though there is a a TINY chance of getting the infection, it’s really bad if you do. Like a 20% fetal mortality rate. That’s enough to scare away most people from just the chance that something will go wrong.

The only papers I’ve found are on outcome of eating varying amounts of cooked fish...(more is better..but then the mercury...oh dear).

I am sure that Japanese women eat raw fish while pregnant - I am also sure they have a much more hygienic seafood processing system. Dunno.

Check this op-ed from the NyTimes..
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/15/opinion/15shaw.html?ex=1342152000&en=95967c31f42f5f2c&ei=5090&partner=rssuserland&emc=rss

Posted on November 28, 2007 at 10:30 PM by

No sushi is very disrespectful to Japanese’s culture. For many centuries, pregnant Japanese women has consume sushi and no study is going to tell them otherwise.

A lot of stuff I read these days are bogus and you can’t really trust the press anymore. Freedom of speech doesn’t really exist because the rich control all the media, so whatever they say is truth. Most people believed anything the media throw at them.

Posted on February 27, 2008 at 2:27 AM by Pregnancy 101

Maybe the raw fish bacteria doesn’t infect japanese women because they got inmunised from eating it so much throughout their lives before getting pregnant?

Posted on July 20, 2008 at 11:00 PM by

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