Can I eat mozzarella while pregnant?

The verdict

Pasteurised mozzarella is safe to eat cold in the UK, Ireland and the United States. The NHS names it directly on its list of pasteurised soft cheeses that are safe in pregnancy, along with cottage cheese, cream cheese, feta, paneer, ricotta, mascarpone, halloumi, burrata and rindless goats' cheese.

Australia and New Zealand disagree. Food Standards Australia New Zealand names mozzarella in the higher-risk row of its table for pregnant women, immediately alongside brie, camembert, ricotta, feta and blue, and offers hard cheeses, pasteurised cream cheese, plain cottage cheese and baked soft cheeses cooked to an internal 75C as the alternatives.

Cooked mozzarella is safe everywhere, which is convenient, because most mozzarella is eaten on a pizza that has just come out of an oven.

Why the UK counts mozzarella as safe

Mozzarella is a pasta filata cheese: the curd is heated and stretched in hot water, then formed and cooled. It has no rind, no surface mould and no ripening period. It is sold young and wet, packed in its own brine or whey.

The absence of a rind is the reason the NHS separates it from brie. Mould-ripened cheeses are ripened from the outside in, and that process raises the pH of the cheese towards neutral, which is what makes them a good home for listeria. Mozzarella never goes through it.

The stretching step also matters. The curd is worked in water hot enough to make it plastic, which is a heat treatment of its own, though it is not why the guidance is written the way it is. What the guidance turns on is that the milk was pasteurised and the finished cheese has no ripened surface.

Fresh, block, buffalo and burrata

Fresh mozzarella in a ball, packed in liquid, is the version the NHS is describing, and it is safe if the label says pasteurised. Block or grated pizza mozzarella is a firmer, drier, lower-moisture version of the same cheese and is at least as low risk. Mini mozzarella pearls and bocconcini behave the same way.

Buffalo mozzarella, mozzarella di bufala campana, is made from water buffalo milk. In the UK, Ireland and the US it is normally pasteurised and the label will say so, but traditional producers do make raw-milk versions, and imported artisan cheese from a specialist counter is where you would find one. If the label does not say pasteurised, treat it as raw milk and cook it.

Burrata is mozzarella wrapped around a filling of cream and shredded curd. The NHS lists burrata separately on the same safe line, and it has its own page here because the very short shelf life changes the handling advice.

Pizza, lasagne and anything that has been in an oven

Cooked cheese is the universal exemption. The NHS lists any cheese that has been cooked until steaming hot, including soft or blue cheese, as safe. FSANZ specifies baked soft cheeses cooked to an internal temperature of 75C, and separately advises reheating food until steaming hot at 75C.

A margherita pizza from an oven, a lasagne, a mozzarella-topped bake, mozzarella melted into a hot sauce, and breaded mozzarella sticks fried through all clear that bar comfortably. So does a calzone.

Cold applications do not. A caprese salad, mozzarella pearls in a pasta salad, a cold mozzarella and tomato sandwich, or fresh mozzarella torn over a finished dish at the table are all uncooked. Those are fine on UK, Irish and US advice if the cheese is pasteurised, and are the ones Australian and New Zealand advice asks you to swap or cook.

Pizza that has gone cold and is eaten the next day is a separate question about leftovers rather than about cheese: the FSA's advice is to chill leftovers quickly, keep them below 5C, and reheat until steaming hot right through.

Handling fresh mozzarella at home

Fresh mozzarella is a wet, low-salt, ready-to-eat food, which is exactly the profile listeria likes if it gets in. That is why the handling advice matters more than usual even though the cheese itself is on the safe list.

The FSA's listeria advice is to refrigerate food as soon as possible after purchase, keep the fridge below 5C, eat ready-to-eat food within four hours of taking it out of the fridge or within two hours on a very warm day, always eat or freeze by the use-by date, and use opened food within two days if the label gives no other instruction.

FSANZ adds the precaution that applies specifically to cheese: buy cheeses packaged by the manufacturer rather than cut and wrapped at a counter, and store them in the fridge. A sealed tub from a supermarket chiller has a documented use-by date and has been handled once. A ball cut from a communal container at a deli has been handled repeatedly.

If you have already eaten some

If it was pasteurised, there is nothing to do; that is within guidance in the UK, Ireland and the US, and even in Australia the advice is a preference for safer choices rather than a warning about a specific hazard.

If it was unpasteurised buffalo mozzarella, or mozzarella of unknown origin from a market stall, the risk is still low. Listeriosis is rare. NHS advice on foods that should have been avoided is that a small amount, if you did not become ill, is unlikely to affect your baby.

What matters is the following weeks. ACOG notes symptoms may appear as late as two months after eating contaminated food, and lists fever, chills, muscle aches, diarrhoea and upset stomach, progressing in more serious cases to stiff neck, headache, confusion and loss of balance. If any of those appear, contact your midwife or GP the same day and say what you ate.

Where guidance genuinely differs

This is a classification disagreement, not a scientific one. The UK asks two questions: does the cheese have a mould rind, and was the milk pasteurised. Mozzarella answers no and yes, so it is safe.

Australia and New Zealand ask one question: is it a soft, semi-soft or surface-ripened cheese. Mozzarella is soft, so it goes in the higher-risk group with the rest, and the recommendation is to cook it or choose from the safer alternatives.

The US frames everything around pasteurisation, so pasteurised mozzarella is not on the FDA or ACOG avoid list. Ireland's HSE names unpasteurised dairy, mould-ripened cheese and blue cheese, none of which describes pasteurised mozzarella.

If you want a single rule that satisfies all of them, it is the one most people follow anyway without thinking about it: eat it hot.