Is hollandaise sauce safe during pregnancy?

What does the evidence say about hollandaise sauce during pregnancy?

1. Traditional hollandaise is egg yolk whisked over gentle warmth, and that light heat usually isn't hot enough to knock out Salmonella if the egg happened to carry it, which is why fully cooking eggs is the safer bet. 1
2. A Salmonella infection usually shows up as diarrhea, fever, and stomach cramps within about half a day to three days, and during pregnancy it can occasionally spread into the bloodstream or, rarely, pass to the baby before birth. 1
3. In a study following pregnant women, higher Salmonella antibody levels (a sign of past exposure) were linked to a greater chance of preterm birth, which is one more reason to play it safe with raw or undercooked eggs. 2
4. Pasteurization is built specifically to wipe out Salmonella inside the egg, and food-safety modeling shows that stepping up pasteurization meaningfully lowers the number of Salmonella illnesses linked to egg products. 3
5. Less than 3% of eggs sold in the U.S. are pasteurized, so a made-from-scratch restaurant hollandaise is almost certainly built on regular raw yolks. It's worth asking if a pasteurized-egg version is available, or making a batch at home with pasteurized eggs. 4

Is hollandaise sauce safe in each trimester?

• First trimester. Morning sickness already has your stomach on edge, and a Salmonella infection would only pile on more nausea and cramping. Skip the classic hollandaise for now and order eggs Benedict with a fully cooked poached egg, or ask if the kitchen has a pasteurized-egg option.
• Second trimester. Pregnancy changes how your immune system responds, so a stomach bug can hit harder than it used to. The same rule still applies here: choose a fully cooked sauce or one made with pasteurized eggs instead of the traditional raw-yolk version.
• Third trimester. This late in pregnancy, a bout of vomiting and diarrhea from foodborne illness can be genuinely draining if it leads to dehydration. Stick with fully cooked eggs and pasteurized hollandaise, and mention any recent stomach illness to your care team.