How to Prevent Listeria in Pregnancy

Quick answer: The food safety rules CDC and FDA recommend for pregnancy boil down to four things — clean, separate, cook, chill. Plus a short list of foods to skip entirely (deli meats unless reheated, queso fresco-style soft cheeses, refrigerated smoked seafood, pâté, raw milk and raw-milk products, raw sprouts). These rules cut your risk but can’t eliminate it; even FDA-regulated products have caused outbreaks. None of this is your fault if you get sick.

The four rules: clean, separate, cook, chill

Clean

• Wash hands with soap and water for 20 seconds before and after handling food.
• Wash cutting boards, dishes, utensils, and counters with hot soapy water after preparing each food item.
• Rinse raw fruits and vegetables thoroughly under running water — even ones with rinds you’ll peel, like melons. Scrub firm produce with a clean produce brush.
• Don’t rinse raw meat or poultry — it spreads bacteria.

Separate

• Keep raw meat, poultry, seafood, and eggs separate from ready-to-eat foods in your shopping cart, bags, fridge, and on counters.
• Use separate cutting boards for raw meat and produce.
• Don’t reuse marinades that touched raw meat.

Cook

• Use a food thermometer.
• 165 °F — poultry (whole and ground), reheated leftovers, reheated hot dogs and deli meats.
• 160 °F — ground beef, pork, lamb; egg dishes (when not consumed in a finished product like a baked good).
• 145 °F + 3 min rest — beef, pork, lamb whole cuts; fish.
• Cook shellfish until shells open.

Chill

• Keep the refrigerator at 40 °F or below and the freezer at 0 °F or below. (Listeria can grow at fridge temps, but it grows much faster above 40 °F. A fridge thermometer is worth it.)
• Refrigerate perishable food within 2 hours (1 hour above 90 °F).
• Use refrigerated leftovers within 3–4 days.
• Buy meat, poultry, dairy, and eggs last at the grocery store so they spend less time out of refrigeration.

Pregnancy-specific food rules

The detailed list is on the causes and foods page. The shortcut version:

• Skip deli meats, hot dogs, refrigerated pâté, and refrigerated smoked seafood — unless reheated to steaming hot (165 °F).
• Skip queso fresco-style soft cheeses (and other soft cheeses) unless the label explicitly says “made with pasteurized milk” — and even then, the FDA recommends pregnant women avoid queso fresco-style cheeses entirely because of repeat outbreaks.
• Skip raw milk and raw-milk products entirely.
• Skip raw sprouts (alfalfa, clover, mung bean, radish).
• Skip unpasteurized juice and cider.
• Skip foods with raw eggs (eggnog, mousse, tiramisu, raw cookie dough, Caesar dressing).

When eating out

Most outbreaks come from packaged products, not restaurants — but a few precautions help.

• At delis and sandwich shops, ask for meat sliced fresh and ask them to wipe the slicer first if you can see they’re using it for multiple products.
• Skip the salad bar.
• Skip rare or undercooked dishes (sushi, steak tartare, runny-yolk dishes).
• If a dish at a restaurant arrives cooler than steaming, send it back.

Sign up for recall alerts

Two free recall alerts are worth subscribing to during pregnancy:

• USDA FSIS Recall Alerts — meat, poultry, and egg products.
• FDA Recall Alerts — everything else (dairy, produce, packaged foods, seafood).

When prevention isn’t enough

Following every rule perfectly still won’t make the risk zero. The 2024 Boar’s Head outbreak hospitalized people who had been buying Boar’s Head specifically because they trusted the brand. The 2011 cantaloupe outbreak hit consumers who’d been told to eat more fresh fruit. The whole point of food-safety law is that the burden of preventing contamination falls on the producer, not on you.

If you get listeriosis and a recalled product was likely the source, the producer can be held legally responsible. The contact page walks through what to do next.

Sources: FDA — Preventing Listeria Infections · CDC — Listeria Prevention · CDC — Protect Your Pregnancy from Listeria (PDF).