Is ahi tuna safe during pregnancy?

What does the evidence say about ahi tuna during pregnancy?

1. Yellowfin tuna, the fish most often labeled ahi, falls into the FDA and EPA's 'Good Choices' tier for mercury, capped at about one serving a week, while bigeye tuna, another fish sometimes sold as ahi, lands on the 'Choices to Avoid' list. 1
2. Pregnant women are generally advised to eat up to 12 ounces of fish a week, mostly from the lower-mercury 'Best Choices' list, with room for only about one weekly serving from the 'Good Choices' tier that yellowfin falls into. 1
3. Raw seafood, meaning any fish that has not been cooked at all, can carry Vibrio, E. coli, Listeria, Salmonella, and Toxoplasma, pathogens that can cause foodborne illness. 2
4. A retail study of poke, ceviche, and sushi dishes sold in Orange County, California found one spicy tuna poke sample with a borderline level of E. coli and several opportunistic bacteria in other samples, with poke's average coliform contamination falling between the higher levels found in ceviche and the lower levels found in sushi. 3
5. Public health guidance recommends pregnant women avoid raw fish, shellfish, and raw bivalves because of a higher risk of Vibrio, norovirus, and other foodborne infections, a recommendation that applies even to flash-frozen sushi. 4

Is ahi tuna safe in each trimester?

• First trimester. If nausea has you avoiding fish altogether, that is fine. Once ahi tuna comes back on the menu, ask two things: which preparation, raw or cooked, and whether you would rather wait on raw poke or sashimi until after delivery.
• Second trimester. Appetite often returns now, and ahi poke bowls or seared ahi salads become tempting again. A fully cooked ahi steak or seared-through poke keeps you within the low-mercury yellowfin allowance without the raw-seafood infection risk.
• Third trimester. Keep tracking your total weekly fish, not just one meal. This is a good stretch to stick with fully cooked ahi and skip raw poke or sashimi, since avoiding extra foodborne illness risk matters most close to delivery.