Nina In New York: Eat More Fish Or Your Baby Won't Succeed In Life On Any Level

A lighthearted look at news, events, culture and everyday life in New York. The opinions expressed are solely those of the writer.
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By Nina Pajak

Congratulations on your pregnancy! Hopefully you're happy and excited about it. Hopefully you're feeling pretty good and you're in reasonably good health. There's nothing to worry about as long as you follow the simple and completely reasonable guidelines for keeping yourself and your unborn child healthy during your gestation.

It's easy: don't sleep on your side. Don't sleep on your belly. Don't sleep on your back. Get plenty of rest. No cured meats, no lunch meats, no meats with antibiotics, and be sure to eat enough meat to stave off an iron deficiency. Eat lots of vegetables and salads, but never from an open salad bar where the unwashed masses could contaminate the food. Also never from a closed-off professional kitchen or lunch place where utensils may not be properly cleaned. Fruit is key! But no fresh juice in case it isn't pasteurized and you become the first person in the history of juice to get a dire illness from a blender. Also sometimes melon has listeria, as do lettuce, sprouts, sundry frozen meals, apples, fresh cheese, old cheese, cheap cheese, and probably anything in that deli case you thought you could still eat given the above rules. It's probably no big deal and super unlikely, but if you guess wrong and lightning strikes, your precious, growing baby whom you would do anything to protect will die in utero so it's totally up to you if you just have to have that potato salad.

Alcohol may be okay, except NO ALCOHOL UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES. Do you honestly want your child to wind up acting like a European?

No sushi, unless it's cooked but then make sure they use an entirely new knife and cutting board and kitchen so there are no raw fish cooties on your California roll. Anyway, fish is loaded with mercury, so stay away from it at all costs. Except for the three servings you absolutely must get for all of the excellent nutrition it provides. Some fish are fine, according to lots of official sources, but be sure to troll the Internet for conflicting information on all of them. Also, most of them aren't sustainable and are over-farmed or irresponsibly farmed in countries with lax regulations on antibiotics and quality control. Don't let that deter you, though, because this just in from Spain: children whose mothers ate the most fish during pregnancy wind up with notably higher brain function than their comparatively slow, fish-deprived counterparts. Also, scientists in Japan completed a study in which they mimicked feeding a fish-heavy diet to pregnant rats by supplying some of them with omega-3, a "good fat" found in seafood. The control pregnant rats received a different "good fat" which does not come from the briny deep (and of which we humans tend to eat more). And what did they find? The baby rats bolstered by omega-3s basically came out of the womb doing algebra and advising the researchers on their scientific methods, while the control baby rats all ran around headbutting one another and having farting contests. They also grew into emotionally unstable adults who have trouble holding down jobs and finding and sustaining healthy romantic relationships. (A lot of people are going to have to go call their mothers right now, maybe).

Have you got all that? Don't sweat it. Only your child's entire professional and personal future may be at steak. I mean stake. Just not a tuna one, for heaven's sake*. What are you, crazy?

*Okay, okay, you can have a little bit.

Nina Pajak is a writer living with her husband, daughter and dog in Queens. Connect with Nina on Twitter!