Yes, being pregnant in Australia, it is the first thing you are warned about. No soft cheese, sushi, salad bars, cold meats, pizza and ESPECIALLY no soft serve.Thankyou for this well written post.

And here's one more way for the "experts" to control people. Only pregnant women in *certain western countries* "can't" eat a number of foods. I think that, as this post details, "The risk appears minimal with good sanitation". Duh. If you have rotten lunchmeat that's all slimy and smells bad sitting in your fridge - don't eat it. If you visit your local Baskin Robbins and notice that the bags of soft serve are laying on the floor (and you *CAN* see the floors behind the counter) then by all means - pass on it. Even if people are making their own home made ice cream, it can still be tainted with bacteria - soft serve is not the only ice cream that can be tainted. Again - duh.

This is actually a bigger issue than simple food service sanitary practices. There is a bacteria (Listeria moncytogenes) that is contained in the above items (soft cheeses, cold cuts, soft serve, etc.) that is harmless to adults and even children, but attacks the unborn child causing still births and miscarriages. In newborns it causes sepsis, pneumonia and meningitis. The bacteria is found in soil, water, and plants and unlike other bacteria this one grows in cool moist environments. It is found in other foods, but other foods are cooked before serving, thereby killing the bacteria.As to the previous post. This not an issue about experts trying to control people. It is about giving individuals the knowledge they need to make an informed decision. It is a valid issue to decide if an ice cream cone is worth the potential risk to an unborn child. A friend of mine lost their child to this bacteria. She got it from mozzarella cheese never knowing that this could pose a problem. Had she known, she would have avoided these potentially dangerous foods for the nine months she was pregnant. This bacteria does not show signs of rotting or spoilage. Any cold cut can carry it. Hard ice cream is not as big a problem as soft serve because soft serve is made at a higher temperature. The lower temperature prevents the bacteria from growing to dangerous levels. Home-made soft serve ice cream doesn't last very long before it is eaten. The bacteria is not given a chance to reproduce to dangerous levels before the product is eaten. Before you give advice on issues of people's health, perhaps you should first be informed about what you are talking about. But then again, if we don't let the "experts" share the information with us, we will have to make do with the information from "amateurs" like you.

Wow. I am surprised at how uneducated and selfish some of these posters seem to be. Do you really think it is worth eating soft serve ice cream (typically found in fast food situations, which arguably should be avoided anyway)? Are you so self centered that you think you should be able to have anything you want and your unborn child will just have to suffer the consequences? By that logic, pregnant women should continue smoking cigarettes and drinking: just because the "experts" say you shouldn't is no reason to change your habits, right? Parenting is all about sacrifice. People who do not want as much information as possible about how to nurture healthy babies in the womb have no business having children.

To the previous poster who commented about pregnant women eating only peanuts and apples. You're going to have to limit that to ONLY apples because eating peanuts during pregnancy can apparently increase your child's risk of a deadly peanut allergy! The fact is that LIFE is risky. And while yes, a soft serve ice cream machine might carry a higher risk than normal of carrying listeria, the chances that a pregnant woman is going to contract it and miscarry her baby over it are extremely slim. You have a greater chance of getting into a dangerous car accident, but we don't think twice about getting in our vehicles for such trivial trips as a desire to go "out" for the evening. (You selfish woman! You know how dangerous vehicles are! Are you really willing to put your child's life on the line because you wanted to go "out". Once your baby is born and safely strapped into a car seat you will have plenty of opportunities to go "out".) The most recent case of listeria contamination that I have any connection to (a friend of a friend) came after the woman ate cheddar cheese at a baby shower. Cheddar cheese is a "safe" food. In fact, most of the listeria cases I hear about have nothing to do with deli meat or soft serve ice cream. They are random foods that the mother thought should be safe, but were tragically not.