Maintaining hygiene during pregnancy

  Summary: The article mentions all the points that should be followed to maintain all the hygienic conditions. When a woman is pregnant, she has to take extra care of herself and the fetus inside her womb. She has to maintain complete hygiene all around her, so that the baby remains healthy. During different pregnancy stages immune system of a woman becomes weak and does not function well as usual. Due to this reason, pregnant woman becomes more susceptible to the germs that may cause food poisoning. The two most common symptoms of food poisoning are vomiting and diarrhea.

The germs that are the main cause of these symptoms can be easily avoided if following points are taken care of:

Personal hygiene

*You should wash your hands before and during food preparation, so that food poisoning bacteria does not spread in the food. Soap and warm water should be used to wash the hands properly. Form a good lather and ensure that your hands, thumbs, wrists, fingers and fingernails are also washed thoroughly. Rinse all the soap off your hands with clean water.

* After washing hands, it is also very important to dry your hands properly because bacteria spread easily on wet hands. Use a clean hand towel and not tea towel for drying your hands.

* You should also wash your hands after handling raw foods, so that bacteria do not spread from one food to another. Spread of bacteria from one food to another is called as cross contamination.

* It is also not advisable to handle any food if you are having stomach problems like vomiting or diarrhea.

* Don't touch the food if you are having sores or cuts, until and unless they are covered with a waterproof dressing.

Foods should be kept at right temperature

* When you are purchasing chilled and frozen foods from the supermarkets, you should store them in your fridge or freezer as soon as you reach home. * You should keep your freezer and fridge at the right temperature; freezers should be below -18 degrees C and fridge should be below 5 degrees C.

* Germs that are food-borne develop in lukewarm conditions, so it is necessary to store the cold foods as cold and hot food as hot until these have to be eaten.

* It is very important to store these food items in the fridge or freezer:


-- Food that contains cream like trifle, cream cakes and desserts
-- Food that contain raw eggs
-- Meat and poultry
Store food safely

* The food that is stored in the fridge should be covered properly. Raw foods and cooked foods should be stored separately in the fridge; cooked foods should be stored at the top and raw foods in the bottom of the fridge.

* Cover all the food items that are possible, it helps in protecting the food from birds, pets and insects that carry bugs.

* Check the dates that have been marked on packaging and use food within the recommended period.

All these points should be followed in all the pregnancy stages to maintain complete hygiene; this is so because maintaining hygiene will help in keeping the mother and baby healthy.

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