Table 2.

Reasons for restricting all or most or specific food groups during pregnancy and postpartum

Reasons	All or most foods a	Meat	Poultry	Fish	Wild animals	Frogs and snakes	Insects	Vegetables	Fruits	Roots and tubers	Other foods b
Pregnancy
Avoid having a large baby	0	0	0	0	1	0	0	0	0	0	0
Tradition in family/ethnic group	1	5	1	2	1	1	2	1	5	4	3
Cause pain in the women's body	0	0	0	1	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
Postpartum
Tradition in family/ethnic group	471	92	7	21	27	13	5	1	2	0	43
Help the mother's body heal after childbirth	169	2	1	4	0	0	0	1	0	0	10
Cause pain in the mother's body	19	1	0	2	0	0	0	1	0	0	5
Cause pain in the infant	8	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
Lead to illness in the infant	1	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
Improve breastmilk quality and/or quantity	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0

Note: Values represent number of responses (not number of women).

^a Multiple reasons could be given for restricting all or most foods.

^b Other foods specified by women: pickled foods (n = 2) and cake (n = 1) during pregnancy; pickled foods (n = 58) postpartum.