🐑 Meat Consumption During Eid al-Adha and Pregnancy

🌡️ Meat Safety — Cooking Temperatures

The most reliable control for meat safety is internal temperature — it is not safe to visually tell "color changed, done". USDA's clear warning: 1 in 4 burgers will brown before reaching safe internal temperature. Be sure to use a meat thermometer 1.

🦠 Important Pathogens and Risks in Pregnancy

1. Toxoplasma gondii

Primary sources of maternal Toxo infection are raw, undercooked or cured meat, soil-contaminated vegetables/fruit, and seafood from contaminated water. UpToDate (Apr 2026): risk of vertical transmission to the fetus is 15% at the 13th week, 71% at the 36th week; However, symptomatic congenital disease is much more severe in early pregnancy (61% at 13 weeks) ⁴ .

Prevention: do not taste raw meat, hand and counter hygiene after contact with raw meat, have someone else clean the cat feces box, do not drink unfiltered water. For meat, an internal temperature of 66 °C or freezing at −12 °C for 24 hours kills cysts 4 .

2. Listeria monocytogenes

CDC (January 2025): pregnant women are 10 times more likely to get Listeria infections 2 . Recent reviews (Microorganisms 2024) update this figure to 17-fold 7 . Infection in early pregnancy carries a 65% risk of miscarriage; The highest risk is in the 3rd trimester 7 .

• Neonatal Listeriosis mortality: 20-30%; granulomatosis infantisepticum: up to 80% (preterm infant) ^{7 , 9} .
• If maternal antibiotics are started at least 1 day before birth, it reduces neonatal severity by 77% 7 .
• Listeria grows even at refrigerator temperature (0-4 °C).

To Avoid: unpasteurized soft cheeses, cold deli meats/sausages (unless heated to steaming), refrigerator paté/spread, cold smoked seafood.

3. Brucella (especially B. melitensis ) — critical for Türkiye

Türkiye is endemic for Brucella (incidence ~25.7 per 100,000) 10 . The classic route of transmission is raw milk and cheese; Undercooked offal (especially liver, spleen) and contaminated meat in sacrificial meat can also be a transmission route.

• Türkiye 23-center multicenter (2002-2015, 242 pregnant women): obstetric complications 14%; 6.1% spontaneous abortion, 2.1% IUFD ¹⁰ .
• Diyarbakır series (2017-2023, 23 pregnant women): abortion 21.7%, low birth weight 55.6%, 2 congenital brucellosis, 1 breast milk transmission ¹¹ .

4. E. coli O157:H7 and others

Cooking ground meat to 7¹ °C kills E. coli O157:H7 1. Pregnant women have a higher risk of hemorrhagic colitis and HUS than the general population. Undercooked hamburgers are the most common outbreak source.

5. Prion (BSE/scrapie) — lamb/sheep brain and spinal cord

Direct transmission from scrapie (sheep-goat) to humans has not been shown, but a theoretical risk cannot be excluded. BSE-contaminated bovine brain/spinal cord has been associated with vCJD. Practical: consumption of lamb/sheep brain and spinal cord during pregnancy is not recommended (high cholesterol + theoretical risk).

⚠️ Organ Meats — CRITICAL Warning

🥩 Liver and Vitamin A Toxicity

This is the most critical feeding point of sacrifice sharing. The liver contains significant amounts of "preformed" vitamin A (retinol) and is teratogenic (risk of birth defects) in high doses.

UpToDate recommends limiting liver consumption during pregnancy, especially in the first trimester ¹² . The NHS says liver and liver products should be avoided completely due to their high levels of vitamin A — adult female 600 µg per day; Liver is a “particularly rich source” and should not be consumed more than once a week ¹³ . ACOG emphasizes that exceeding the recommended dose of prenatal vitamin may lead to birth defects due to vitamin A ¹⁴ .

Other Offal

• Kidney, spleen: Vitamin A is not a problem; Caution with Brucella and veterinarian-uncontrolled animals — good cooking is a must.
• Brain, spinal cord (lamb/sheep): Theoretical prion risk + very high cholesterol → not recommended in pregnant women.
• Heart, tongue: Rich in iron/B12, safe if cooked well.
• Home slaughters (no vet check): Risk of Brucella, Echinococcus, Mycobacterium bovis — thick cut + long cook.

💪 Nutritional Contribution — Why Is Meat Valuable During Pregnancy?

The global prevalence of iron deficiency anemia in pregnancy is 41.8% (WHO). Properly cooked red meat is a valuable additional source of iron support for these pregnant women—cooking it properly rather than avoiding it is essential.

Upper limit: IARC 2015 — processed meat Group 1 (colorectal carcinogen), red meat Group 2A (possible). NHS advice: reduce if more than 70g of cooked red + processed meat per day. Sacrifice meat is mostly fresh and unprocessed — in this respect, it is more advantageous in terms of quality than cured products such as sucuk/salami/ham.

📝 Practical Tips — 12 Items

1. Temperature rule: whole piece ≥ 63 °C + 3 min; minced meat/meatballs/roasted meat ≥ 71 °C. Use a meat thermometer; Don't trust color.
2. Liver (liver): Minimize throughout pregnancy. Avoid completely during the first trimester.
3. Brain and spinal cord: Not recommended due to theoretical risk of prions and high cholesterol.
4. Contact with raw meat: Use gloves; Then wash hands with soap + hot water for at least 20 seconds. Do not touch your face or eyes. Clean the blade/board/bench with soap; Prevent vegetable-fruit cross-contamination.
5. Do not taste while cooking (UpToDate Toxoplasma guide clear recommendation).
6. Storage: Refrigerate at 4 °C within 2 hours; Portion it the same day and put it in the −18 °C freezer. For Toxoplasma, freezing at −12 °C for 24 hours kills cysts.
7. Brucella risk before consuming offal (in the Diyarbakır, Şanlıurfa, Van, Erzurum, Erzincan, and Sivas regions): if there is any doubt regarding offal from an animal without veterinary inspection, skip it.
8. Dry cured products (bacon, sausage slice): "salting + drying" is not sufficient inactivation of Toxoplasma; Do not consume without heat.
9. Do not consume raw meat: Raw meatballs, raw sausage slices, meat with blood — absolutely no.
10. Water: do not drink unfiltered water or water that may be contaminated (risk of Toxoplasma oocysts).
11. Iron + protein advantage: Cooked, fresh sacrificial red meat in reasonable amounts (300-500 g per week) is beneficial for pregnancy anemia and protein needs.
12. If fever + flu-like symptoms begin after consuming meat, seek medical advice for Listeria/Brucella.

🌙 Folk Belief: "Touching the Sacrifice Meat Causes Stains on the Baby"

The Origin of Faith

Ancient origins: The belief that what the pregnant woman eats, sees and touches "passes on" to the baby is not specific to a single culture; It is a common motif in human history. This thought pattern, called sympathetic magic, is a universal folk-causality model defined by anthropologist James George Frazer in The Golden Bough in 1890: "What resembles something interacts with that thing" principle. Typical of this logic is the association of birthmarks (especially red, strawberry-shaped vascular lesions) with red foods eaten/seen by the mother.

Historical medical texts: Hippocrates (5th century BCE) and Galen (2nd century CE), in the ancient Greco-Roman medical corpus, recorded the view that a pregnant woman’s mental state could affect the fetus. This doctrine entered medieval European medicine and became an academic paradigm in the 17th–18th centuries under the name maternal impression. Descartes, Louis de La Forge, and Nicolas Malebranche attempted to explain it through mechanical philosophy, proposing hypothetical animal spirits transmitted from the maternal mind to the fetus [20]. In the 19th century, William Hunter and other obstetricians began rejecting the doctrine; modern molecular embryology definitively refuted it by the end of the 20th century.

Cross-cultural similarities: This belief pattern developed in parallel in independent civilizations:

• Latin America — antojo (Mexico, Brazil, Colombia): if the food the pregnant woman desires is not fulfilled, the baby will have a stain in the form of that food. Strawberries, coffee, grapes are the most frequently cited foods.
• India — Ayurvedic corpus (Charaka Samhita, Sushruta Samhita): doctrine of garbhini paricharya — belief that the diet, conduct, and views of the pregnant woman "form" the child. Some foods and places are prohibited.
• Chinese traditional medicine — the pregnant woman should not see funerals, slaughtered animals, or ugly things; otherwise the belief in "deformity" in the fetus.
• European folklore—“stork spot” (Germany, Netherlands), “stork bite” (England)—associates the pink patch on the nape of a newborn with the spot bitten by the stork while carrying the baby at birth.
• African traditional beliefs — participation in pregnant women's funeral ceremonies, abstinence from eating certain animal flesh; belief in evil spirit contact.
• Folk beliefs of the Islamic world — The taboo of "avoiding cravings" is common in Turkish-Anatolian, Arab and Persian folklore; In some fiqh-medical texts, the effect of the pregnant woman's fears/desires on the child is discussed (mentioned in Ibn Sina El-Qanun fi't-Tıb from the classical medical corpus).

Why did it emerge? At the root of these beliefs lie several common human needs:

• Need for clarification: Birthmarks occur in approximately 30-40% of newborns — an extremely common observation. The scientific cause (somatic gene mutations, embryological migration anomalies) was unknown in the pre-modern period; the human mind asks "why?" He cannot leave the question blank, he creates a narrative.
• Sense of control: Pregnancy is a period of high uncertainty. The belief that "if I do/don't eat this, my baby will be fine" gives the mother the illusion of control; It functions to reduce anxiety.
• Social regulation: Taboos serve to conform the pregnant woman's behavior to community norms (hygiene, nutrition, social interaction). The rule "don't eat that food" sometimes makes sense from a medical point of view (stale meat, alcohol, etc. may be tabooed).
• Recalled coincidence: Cognitive bias — cases where the pregnant woman desired strawberries and her baby had a strawberry-shaped hemangioma are remembered; When there is no desire, thousands of cases with the same stain are forgotten. This confirmation is enough to keep the bias myth alive.

Turkish-Anatolian in particular: Eryılmaz HZ's work "Birthmarks as a Living Myth" shows how this belief takes the form of an "origin myth" in Turkish folk culture and how it frames the symbolic position of the pregnant woman ¹⁹ . Variations of the belief have been observed in different regions of Anatolia: in the Black Sea, forms such as "craving and not eating → mark on the child's face", in Central Anatolia, "touching the belly during a lunar eclipse → moon-shaped stain", in Eastern Anatolia, "seeing the blood of the sacrifice → red stain" are recorded. This diversity shows how vibrant and adaptable the faith is in the local context.

Common variants:

1. "If the craving is not fulfilled": If the pregnant woman cannot eat the food she craves, the shape/color of that food appears as a stain on the baby's body (e.g. "strawberry hemangioma" = "strawberry stain" belief).
2. "Eating without permission/secretly": The mother takes someone else's property and eats it without permission, or the food she eats secretly will be seen as a stain on the hidden part of the body.
3. "Don't touch the belly": If the baby touches his/her belly/body while craving, the baby will also have a stain in that area. Touching the abdomen is specifically prohibited during a lunar/solar eclipse.
4. "Liver and red meat retention": Smelling roses, eating mulberries, especially liver and red meat, are shown to be the cause of huge stains.
5. "Looking at the sacrificial animal / touching its blood": Concern that if a pregnant woman looks at a live animal, witnesses the slaughter, or touches raw meat, it will leave a mark on the baby.
6. "Lunar eclipse": A moon-shaped spot on the baby of a pregnant woman outside during a lunar eclipse.

These beliefs are not limited to Turkish-Anatolian culture; A similar "maternal impression doctrine" is also found in European, Asian, and Latin American folklore. 18th-19th century European medicine (Descartes, La Forge, Malebranche) tried to maintain this belief (Wilkin RM ²⁰).

🧬 The Real Scientific Explanation of Birthmarks

No birthmark is caused by the food or behavior of the mother. Modern dermatology and embryology have shed light on the causes to a great extent.

Pigmented spots (melanocytic origin):

• Congenital melanocytic nevus (CMN): Small, giant CMN in 1-3% of newborns 1/20,000. Mechanism: somatic post-zygotic gene mutations—BRAF V600E in small CMN, NRAS somatic variant in 60-100% of large/giant CMNs, BRAF fusion in some. Signaling pathway PI3K + MAPK ²¹ .
• Mongolian spot (dermal melanocytosis): Delay in migration of embryonic neural crest cells to the epidermis; Most disappear by the age of 3-5 years ²² .
• Café-au-lait macules: Flat light brown patches; If there are many (≥6), neurofibromatosis type 1 is investigated ²² .

Vascular spots:

• Salmon patch / Nevus simplex ("stork bite"): In 30-40% of newborns — pink patches on the nape, forehead, and eyelids; superficial capillary dilation; most fade ²².
• Port-wine stain (Nevus flammeus): In ~0.3% of newborns; somatic GNAQ c.548G→A (p.Arg183Gln) mutation is present in 88-92% of patients. Mutation in early embryogenesis → Sturge-Weber syndrome, late → isolated port-wine ²³ .
• Infantile hemangioma ("strawberry hemangioma"): In 4-5% of babies; girls:boys 2-3:1. Mechanism: in utero or local placental hypoxia → vasculogenesis (not angiogenesis) → endothelial cell clonal proliferation. Hypoxia-inducible factor-1α targets (VEGF-A, GLUT1, IGF-2) are expressed. The placenta closely matches the chorionic villus gene profile—that is, it is associated with placental pathology, not maternal behavior ²⁴ .

Why the "Maternal Request/Touch → Trace to the Baby" Hypothesis is False

1. Placental barrier: There is no "information transfer" mechanism that will create pinpoint stains on the baby's skin where the mother's hand touches it. The placenta only transmits nutrients, oxygen, IgG and certain pathogens (Listeria, Toxoplasma, viruses).
2. Embryological critical period: Organogenesis occurs during gestational weeks 3–8 — the mother is often not even aware of what she eats/touches during this early window.
3. Random somatic mutation: GNAQ, NRAS, BRAF — there is no biological mechanism for their occurrence attributable to maternal diet/behavior; It is by chance.
4. "Maternal Impression" doctrine refuted: this doctrine of 18th–19th-century European medicine has been definitively refuted by modern molecular embryology and teratology.
5. Hypoxia exception not under maternal control: Infantile hemangioma is associated with placental hypoxia; This is not about "the mother looking at the sacrificed meat", but about the vascular structure of the placenta.

✅ Result

Eid al-Adha is a period of sharing and abundance; Pregnant women do not need to completely avoid meat consumption. Well-cooked red meat is a valuable nutritional support in this period in terms of iron, protein and B12. Minimize liver consumption only (high vitamin A), cook meat until internal temperature reaches 71°C (sufficient for Toxoplasma, Listeria, Brucella, E. coli), and use gloves + good hand hygiene when handling raw meat. Birthmarks have nothing to do with the mother's food or behavior. If you have concerns, consult your physician.

References

1. USDA FSIS. Safe Minimum Internal Temperature Chart. fsis.usda.gov
2. CDC. Safer Food Choices for Pregnant Women, January 31, 2025. cdc.gov
3. NHS. Foods to avoid in pregnancy, 19 May 2023. nhs.uk
4. UpToDate. Toxoplasmosis and pregnancy. Last update November 7, 2025. Wolters Kluwer.
5. Cerisola A et al. Congenital toxoplasmosis. Semin Pediatr Neurol 2025;54:101203. doi:10.1016/j.spen.2025.101203
6. Smith NC et al. Control of human toxoplasmosis. Int J Parasitol 2020;51(2-3):95-121. doi:10.1016/j.ijpara.2020.11.001
7. Roman A et al. Listeria in Pregnancy — The Forgotten Culprit. Microorganisms 2024;12(10):2102. doi:10.3390/microorganisms12102102
8. Charlier C et al. Clinical features and prognostic factors of Listeriosis: MONALISA national prospective cohort study. Lancet Infect Dis 2017;17(5):510-519. doi:10.1016/S1473-3099(16)30521-7
9. Craig AM et al. Listeriosis in Pregnancy: A Review. Obstet Gynecol Surv 2019;74(6):362-368. doi:10.1097/OGX.0000000000000683
10. Inan A et al. Brucellosis in pregnancy: multicenter ID-IRI study. Eur J Clin Microbiol Infect Dis 2019;38:1261-1268. doi:10.1007/s10096-019-03540-z
11. Sero L et al. Effects of brucella infection on the fetus and newborn during pregnancy (Diyarbakır). Z Geburtshilfe Neonatol 2025;230(2):109-114. doi:10.1055/a-2706-6100
12. UpToDate. Nutrition in pregnancy: Dietary requirements and supplements. Apr 2026 lit. Wolters Kluwer.
13. NHS. Vitamin A. nhs.uk/vitamin-a
14. ACOG. Nutrition During Pregnancy FAQ, June 2023. acog.org
15. Coughlin CC et al. Low maternal vitamin A intake increases congenital diaphragmatic hernia in mice. Pediatr Res 2021;90:818-824. doi:10.1038/s41390-021-01409-6
16. Pereira PMC, Vicente AFRB. Benefits and Risks Associated with Meat Consumption. Foods 2022;11(14):2063. doi:10.3390/foods11142063
17. WHO. Five Keys to Safer Food. who.int
18. IARC. Red and Processed Meat — Group 1 (processed) / Group 2A (red), 2015 monograph.
19. Eryılmaz HZ. Birthmarks as Living Myths: Symbols and the Mother-Woman. International Journal of Folklore Research 2019;2(3):159-169. DergiPark
20. Wilkin RM. Essaying the mechanical hypothesis: Descartes, La Forge, and Malebranche on the formation of birthmarks. Early Sci Med 2008;13(6):533-67. doi:10.1163/157338208x362688
21. UpToDate. Congenital melanocytic nevi. 11 August 2025. Wolters Kluwer.
22. UpToDate. Skin lesions in newborns and children. Apr 2026 lit. Wolters Kluwer.
23. UpToDate. Sturge-Weber syndrome. September 3, 2025. Wolters Kluwer.
24. UpToDate. Infantile hemangiomas: Epidemiology, pathogenesis, clinical features. September 19, 2025. Wolters Kluwer.

Prepared by: Op. Dr. Cem Akaltun, Gynecology and Obstetrics Specialist. Last update: September 11, 2026. Medical disclaimer: This content is for informational purposes only and is not a substitute for personal physician advice. If you have a clinical concern, consult your physician.

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