Being Careful about Listeria - Health Channel

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Being Careful about Listeria |

Pregnant women have to be very careful with not getting listeria, because it causes pre-term labor, stillbirth and the baby could be born with infectious diseases such as meningitis.

Dr. Ellen Schwartzbard, Obstetrician and Gynecologist with Baptist Health South Florida, recommends getting all very cooked, avoiding deli meats and unpasteurized foods.

Transcript

There have been a lot of warnings recently about foods that are contaminated with Listeria I mean delve into that just a little bit into what it actually is and why it’s so dangerous for pregnant women. So Listeria if you have a suppressed immune system anyone can get Listeria but it’s specifically more harmful if a pregnant woman gets Listeria because it’s harmful for the fetus it can actually cause preterm labor and most serious effects it can cause a stillbirth and the baby could be born with an infection meningitis so it’s a very serious precaution that pregnant women need to take to avoid Listeria so we go through the foods the deli meats hot dogs need to be cooked well through you need to make sure you’re not contaminating any other foods that you’re cooking if there’s hot dogs around that that fluid doesn’t get near anything else unpasteurized foods so typically the soft cheeses is what’s unpasteurized but I tell patients just because it’s a soft cheese does not guarantee that it’s unpasteurized so unpasteurized is that key word that you need to look at.

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