Nutritional advice
What is and is not healthy during pregnancy?
Nutrition: here’s what to watch out for
The following principle applies to everyone: eat healthy, varied foods and drink enough water (2 liters per day). In addition to this, there are certain foods you should avoid eating during pregnancy because they can make you sick and may be harmful for your baby. For more information, visit the website of the Voedingscentrum. There’s also an app that makes it easy to look up whether you can eat certain foods or not: the ZwangerHap.
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Tips for preventing infection with toxoplasmosis or listeriosis:
- Do not eat raw meat, such as roast beef, filet americain, salami, dry sausage, chorizo, tartare and carpaccio.
- Do not eat soft cheeses made from raw milk. The packaging will say ‘au lait cru’, ‘unpasteurized milk’ or ‘raw milk’.
- Do not eat prepackaged smoked fish, such as vacuum-packed smoked salmon or eel, unless you heat it properly.
- Wash raw fruits and vegetables well.
- Don’t store fresh produce, such as cold cuts and raw vegetable salads, for too long.
- Be careful when changing the litter box: cat poop can contain toxoplasmosis. Use gloves or have someone else do it.
- Wear gloves when working in the garden and wash your hands thoroughly afterwards.
- Limit eating liver products such as liverwurst to no more than one sandwich a day. Liver contains a lot of vitamin A, which can be harmful to the baby.
- Fatty fish is healthy, but predatory fish (swordfish, pikeperch, shark, king mackerel, tuna) and crab or shrimp are better not to eat because they contain a lot of mercury and dioxins, which can be harmful to the baby. Find out which fish are safe to eat here.
- Do not drink more than one cup of coffee a day; too much caffeine is not good.
- Boil eggs for at least 7-8 minutes to prevent any salmonella contamination.
