Can You Eat Ceviche While Pregnant? Risks, Benefits, Healthy Alternatives

POV: You are visiting a coastal area with your partner after the pregnancy announcement, which flew by with smiles and greetings. You decided to have dinner at a beach restaurant with a warm ambiance. When the waiter brings prawns, shrimp, and ceviche, one question crosses your mind. “Can you eat ceviche when pregnant?” 

It’s a food made using raw fish. So, avoiding food like ceviche is best if you are pregnant. It’s not easy to digest such food during pregnancy, and eating it only puts you under difficult health conditions.  

Can You Eat Ceviche While Pregnant?

Here’s the easy answer: No. It’s not safe to eat raw seafood when you are pregnant. These foods usually cause food poisoning and other foodborne diseases. 

Pregnant women can get sick easily if they are eating raw seafood, and the sickness can last for a long period.  

In addition to ceviche, it’s best to avoid many other foods, such as –  

• Sushi 

• Sashimi 

• Raw oysters, clams, scallops,  

• Smoked fish such as lox 

• Shark, swordfish, king mackerel, and tilefish 

Why Ceviche is Not Recommended During Pregnancy

Ceviche is a raw food, one that’s best avoided during pregnancy. In raw foods, you may have parasites such as listeria. These cause viral or bacterial disease during pregnancy.  

It can put you at risk of developing listeriosis, a serious type of food poisoning. Pregnant women are prone to getting food poisoning comparatively faster. That’s why it’s best to avoid food like ceviche.  

You can also be at risk of TORCH infection due to eating raw seafood. We have already discussed how listeria is connected to TORCH infection.   

But before you dig in and savor the taste of Ceviche, it’s best to keep the following points in mind –  

• Ceviche is raw fish or seafood. The FDA doesn’t recommend eating raw seafood during pregnancy. Harmful bacteria, like salmonella, can cause risk to your health.  

• During pregnancy, women have a weaker immune system. So, eating strong food like ceviche can put them at risk of developing specific health hazards and foodborne illnesses. 

• Foodborne illnesses can also lead to other serious pregnancy complications. Preterm labor, miscarriage, and infections aren’t impossible.  

How Does Eating Ceviche Affect You During Pregnancy?

Since you are already aware of the effects, it’s best to know how you might be affected if you eat raw ceviche – 

If you eat raw ceviche with listeria inside, it can cause the following symptoms – 

• Fever 

• Confusions 

• Headaches

• A stiff neck 

• Loss of balance 

• Confusion 

You might be at risk of getting dehydrated or even giving birth to a child prematurely. Stillbirth or miscarriage can also happen if you are suffering from extreme cases of seafood bacterial infection. 

Any TORCH symptoms passed down to the child during birth can cause them to have lifelong brain issues, heart issues, or kidney problems. There are cases where children even went blind or paralyzed when the virus passed down during pregnancy.  

Do You Have to Cook Ceviche Before Eating?

Usually, you don’t cook ceviche in the traditional sense of cooking. That’s why it’s not safe to eat them during pregnancy. Why? Like eating oysters or Sushi, ceviche can also have bacteria that are harmful to pregnant women.  

Since you eat them uncooked, it can be potentially harmful to women during pregnancy. When left uncooked, the bacteria remain active inside. 

It is among the common seafood you avoid keeping yourself healthy during pregnancy. Although you might think of eating them after cooking them in lime, they’re still raw.  

Citrus Juice Does Not “Cook” the Fish 

Ceviche is raw fish that’s cooked using lemon. This type of cooking does change the texture of the meat. It makes the fish change its color to opaque and firm. But it doesn’t get cooked in the sense of cooking.  

The acid in citrus juice makes the texture of the fish resemble cooked fish, but it does not actually cook it. You can marinade it only to change the texture of the surface of the fish. The reason why this doesn’t help is because the parasites and the bacteria stay inside the fish.  

The only way you can get rid of the bacteria inside the fish is through high temperatures that can kill harmful microorganisms in any fish.  

Safer Alternatives to Ceviche

Choose safer alternatives instead. Ceviche has many health benefits.  But it’s best to avoid it with all the complications that it can supposedly cause.  

You can resort to seafood like shrimp that you can eat during pregnancy. Cooked crab, shrimp, or similar seafood are good options. However, consume them after consulting your healthcare provider. Even when your doctor recommends eating seafood, eat in moderation, especially during pregnancy.  

It’s best to avoid food like Sushi. But having a bite-sized sushi made using cooked seafood doesn’t hurt.  

As part of your diet, focus more on the health benefits and dietary elements you need for your health and your baby’s wellbeing. For example, look for foods that are rich in omega-3 fatty acids. It’s best to steer clear of food like trout, sardines, and salmon that can contain high levels of mercury. 

Is Shrimp a Safer Alternative?

You can consider eating shrimp if you must eat seafood during pregnancy. But make sure to cook it properly before consuming fish.  

Yes, you will usually see something other than uncooked shrimp at restaurants. But, if you are eating shrimp in ceviche, it will be in raw form. In such cases, the fish is marinated using lemon. 

But it’s still unsafe to eat shrimp when it’s marinated using lemon and not cooked properly. It’s also best to avoid them with food like Sushi.  

Conclusion 

During pregnancy, it’s best to avoid seafood that is eaten raw and uncooked. Ceviche, oysters, and other seafood can cause digestion problems if you eat them raw. It increases the chances of foodborne diseases growing faster and more easily.  

Yes, there are several health benefits to eating such food. But not during pregnancy. 

You can rely on other alternatives for omega-3 fatty acids, protein, and other macronutrients in ceviche and similar seafood that you must eat raw.

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