On kefir and pregnancy we have no answer to give, and no seller of food legally does. What we can hand you are the three facts that matter. Kefir contains 0.2 to 1 per cent alcohol and more after bottling, milk kefir is made on the milk you choose, and nothing else about a homemade jar is measured. Take those to your midwife.
The figures on this page
This page has been rewritten. The previous version answered the question itself, which it was not in a position to do, and attributed benefits to kefir during pregnancy. Those formulations are not permitted, and we do not keep them.
On kefir and pregnancy we have no answer to give, and we would be wrong to pretend otherwise. Pregnancy is followed medically, by a midwife or a doctor who knows your history. A seller of fermentation cultures is not in that conversation.
There is also a legal point. In the European Union, regulation 1924/2006 limits what a food seller may say about health, and no health claim about kefir is authorised. A page that tells you kefir is good for you during pregnancy is outside the law, which should tell you something about the rest of its content.
What we can do instead is hand you the three facts that are actually relevant, so that the conversation with your midwife takes two minutes rather than ten. That is the whole purpose of this page.
Every fermented drink contains some alcohol, because fermentation produces it. For water kefir and milk kefir the usual range is 0.2 to 1 per cent, and it is higher after a long or warm ferment.
A second fermentation raises it. Bottling the strained drink with fruit for 12 to 48 hours, which is how you get a drink that fizzes on opening, gives the culture more sugar to work with. The alcohol goes up, and it can pass 1 per cent.
This is the single most important line on this page, and it is missing from almost every other page about kefir. Public health guidance on alcohol in pregnancy differs between countries and has changed over time, which is exactly why the question belongs to the person looking after you, with the figure in hand.
We write it down even though it costs us sales, because someone deciding this without the figure is deciding on the wrong information.
These figures are the same on every page of ours and on our product pages. They are the limit of what a culture seller can tell you.
| What goes in | Water kefir, 1 litre | Milk kefir, 1 litre |
|---|---|---|
| Culture | 30 g of grains | 10 to 20 g of grains |
| Liquid | 1 litre of unchlorinated water | 1 litre of milk |
| Sugar | 4 tablespoons, about 60 g | none, the lactose is enough |
| Dried fruit | 1 fig or 2 dried apricots | none |
| Citrus | 1 lemon or 1 orange | none |
| Duration | 24 h, up to 48 h | 24 h |
| Temperature | 20 to 25 °C | 20 to 25 °C |
Water kefir is made on sugared water, so this does not apply. Milk kefir is made on milk, and which milk is your decision, not the culture’s.
Pasteurised milk is the ordinary case and the predictable one.
Raw milk works too and gives a fuller result, but unpasteurised dairy carries its own public health guidance in most countries, and that guidance is usually more specific for pregnancy. We are not the right source for it. Your midwife is, and so is your national food safety body.
Why it matters here: fermentation lowers the pH to about 4.2 to 4.6 in milk kefir, which is acidic, but it is not a pasteurisation step. A culture does not make raw milk into pasteurised milk. Anyone who tells you otherwise is guessing.
This is the part that surprises people, and it cuts both ways.
No microorganism count. A figure per millilitre needs a laboratory analysis of a specific batch. Your jar depends on the kitchen temperature, your local water, the actual duration and the age of the grains. Two jars in the same house are not the same.
No authorised claim. The register held by the European Food Safety Authority contains nothing for kefir, on any subject.
So the honest position on kefir and pregnancy is that we can describe a drink. Water or milk, unconsumed sugars, acids, carbon dioxide, traces of alcohol. What that drink does in a pregnant body is not something a culture seller measures, and we will not speculate about it in either direction.
One important point. If you are pregnant, no dietary change is decided from a web page, whichever one it is. That applies to ours as much as to the ones that promise benefits. Take the three facts above to the person looking after you.
A homemade drink is not analysed, so the values below are orders of magnitude. They follow from the recipe and the time, not from a laboratory.
| Per 200 ml glass | Water kefir, 24 h | Milk kefir, 24 h |
|---|---|---|
| Energy | 30 to 50 kcal | 110 to 130 kcal |
| Residual sugar | about 3 to 4 g per 100 ml | little, lactose partly used |
| pH | about 3 to 3.5 | about 4.2 to 4.6 |
| Alcohol | 0.2 to 1 per cent | 0.2 to 1 per cent |
| Carbon dioxide | marked, more after bottling | little |
You will not find a column for vitamins or for an effect. It would be invented, and an invented figure is worse than none.
Five mistakes account for almost every question we receive. They have nothing to do with skill and everything to do with assumptions that are reasonable and wrong.
First, cutting the sugar. By far the most common. The 4 tablespoons per litre feed the grains, not the drinker. After 24 hours a good part is gone. Halving it starves the culture, and within three cycles it stops multiplying. For a less sweet drink, extend the time.
Second, chlorinated water. Chlorine is made to kill microorganisms, and it does the same to your culture. Bottled water, filtered water, or tap water left uncovered for 12 hours all solve it.
Third, a jar that is too small. A litre of drink needs a 1.5 litre jar. The carbon dioxide has to go somewhere. A jar filled to the brim overflows and smells unpleasant within two days.
Fourth, rinsing every cycle. The grains are rinsed only when visibly coated, in cool unchlorinated water. Rinsing at every turn takes away the film that protects them.
Fifth, metal. A plain metal sieve or spoon reacts with the acidity. Plastic or stainless steel solves it, and it is the only point where equipment genuinely matters.
You will find a great many pages answering the question we have just declined, and it is worth knowing how to weigh them.
Apply those four tests to this page and it passes. Apply them to the version that used to sit at this address and it failed the first two, which is why it was rewritten.
We are not advising this, because we are not in a position to advise anything here. If after talking to your midwife you want the figure as low as it goes, these are the levers that exist, and their limits.
Skip the second fermentation. The bottled stage with fruit is where the figure climbs. Drinking the strained liquid without bottling keeps it at the lower end.
Keep the ferment short and cool. 24 hours at 20 °C rather than 48 hours at 26 °C. Warmth and time both push it up.
Refrigerate immediately after straining. Cold slows fermentation almost to a stop. A bottle left at room temperature keeps working.
And the limit of all three: none of them gets you to zero, and none of them gives you a number you can check. Without a laboratory, nobody knows what the figure actually is in your bottle. That is the honest answer, and it is why on kefir and pregnancy the decision cannot rest on these levers.
Everything about the culture itself, which is a narrow subject and a real one.
How it works. Live grains turn sweetened water or milk into a drink in 24 hours at 20 to 25 °C. Water kefir: 30 g of grains and 4 tablespoons of sugar per litre. Milk kefir: 10 to 20 g of grains per litre, no added sugar.
How to look after it. Strain at 24 hours, start again at once, hold 20 to 25 °C, do not cut the sugar, do not rinse as a rule.
What it costs. One purchase. The grains multiply, roughly doubling in three to six weeks, so the culture is never bought twice.
That is our entire field of competence, and it stops well short of the question you came here with.
| Previous wording | Why it is a problem |
|---|---|
| «is it safe to drink kefir during pregnancy» | a question answered by a shop instead of a midwife |
| «beneficial during pregnancy» | health claim with no authorisation |
| «rich in probiotics» | restricted term, treated as a claim |
| «supports mother and baby» | claim about a physiological effect |
| «naturally safe» | safety asserted without any basis |
None of those sentences was written in bad faith. They came from copied articles. But on kefir and pregnancy the cost of a wrong answer falls on someone else, which is why this page now hands over facts instead of a verdict.
The health claims authorised in the European Union are listed in the register of the European Food Safety Authority. Guidance on home food hygiene is published by the Food Standards Agency.
Live cultures, water and milk
Shipped hydrated and active, ready for the first cycle on the day they arrive.
See the culturesThis is one of the few pages on our site where the honest answer is that it is not ours to give. It would have been easy to write a reassuring paragraph, and it would have been both unlawful and reckless.
What we can do is make the conversation shorter. Take the alcohol figure, the milk you use and the fact that nothing else is measured to the person looking after you, and you will get a real answer on kefir and pregnancy in two minutes. That is worth more than anything we could have written here.
That is a question for your midwife or doctor, not for us. What we can give you are the three facts that matter. Kefir contains 0.2 to 1 per cent alcohol and more after bottling, milk kefir is made on the milk you choose including raw milk if you use it, and nothing else about a homemade jar is measured.
Usually 0.2 to 1 per cent, and higher after a long or warm ferment. A second fermentation in a bottle with fruit raises it further and it can pass 1 per cent. Nobody can tell you the exact figure in your bottle without a laboratory.
Because we are a seller of fermentation cultures, not a medical service, and because no health claim about kefir is authorised in the European Union. A page that tells you kefir is beneficial in pregnancy is outside the law.
No. Fermentation lowers the pH of milk kefir to about 4.2 to 4.6, which is acidic, but it is not a pasteurisation step. A culture does not turn raw milk into pasteurised milk. Guidance on unpasteurised dairy comes from your midwife and your national food safety body.
On the milk question, yes. Water kefir is made on sugared water, so no dairy is involved. On alcohol, no: both contain 0.2 to 1 per cent, and both go higher after a second fermentation in a bottle.
There are three levers. Skip the second fermentation, keep the ferment short and cool, and refrigerate immediately after straining. None of them reaches zero, and none gives you a figure you can verify. We mention them as facts, not as advice.
We cannot say anything in that direction, and nor can anyone selling a food in the European Union. No health claim about kefir is authorised. If you read that it is beneficial in pregnancy, that page has not checked its wording.
No, and nobody honestly can for a homemade preparation. A count per millilitre needs a laboratory analysis of a specific batch. Kitchen temperature, your local water, the actual duration and the age of the grains all change the result.
Three things: whether 0.2 to 1 per cent alcohol in a drink matters in your case, whether the milk you use is appropriate, and whether anything in your own history changes the answer. Those are specific questions and they take two minutes.
No, under no circumstances. No food replaces a prescribed treatment or supplement. If you are on one, any change is discussed with the person who prescribed it.
