Norma posts on the food safety warning against uncooked smoked fish for
pregnant women and asks whether smoked fish is not cooked.  
In Scandinavia, smoking and or salting fish have been used since Viking
times to preserve them, and no, the fish is not cooked.  It is smoke cured,
which means dried slowly, high enough over a wood fire so that the smoke
cures the fish.  Same procedure is used for dried smoked meats, which aren't
cooked either.  Usually food to be smoked is soaked in a brine containing
salt first, but not always.  The proteins do coagulate as in cooking but the
process by which they do so does not involve heat and does not kill
potential pathogens, in particular Listeria monocytogenes, which can
replicate at quite low temperatures, such as in refrigerators.  Other
cold-cured foods like the salmon dish known as gravlax
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gravlax and pickled herring are just as
susceptible to contamination by this bacterium.  Our food safety
recommendations don't mention ceviche http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ceviche,
another uncooked fish dish less widespread in Scandinavia, and they say that
sushi is generally safe for pregnant women, because it is eaten fresh,
whereas the other dishes are prepared without heat and then stored for some
time at temperatures permitting replication of pathogens.  There is a
caution to pregnant and lactating women about sushi made from fresh tuna and
about certain other fish in any form, because of high concentrations of PCB
and other environmental toxins, but that is unrelated to the risk of
food-borne infectious disease.
The danger to pregnant women from eating such food is the same as the danger
from eating soft ripened cheeses, which is listeriosis.  This danger is
highest from true Roquefort cheese, made from unpasteurized ewe's milk, but
is also present in any soft cheese like Brie or Camembert or the blue
cheeses, even if the milk has been pasteurized first.  The woman herself may
be seriously ill, or she may have only mild flu-like symptoms, but the
pathogen is blood borne and can kill her fetus or cause premature birth of
an infant with multi-organ failure apparent at birth.  Ingestion of
L.monocytogenes can be lethal for immunocompromised persons, diabetics,
alcoholics, and the very old or very young.  It is thought by Rolf
Lindemann, a Norwegian pediatrician, that British history was profoundly
influenced by L.monocytogenes, this being one possible cause of the multiple
perinatal losses suffered by Catherine of Aragon in her marriage to Henry
VIII, leading inter alia to the founding of the Anglican Church, if I have
understood events correctly.  Catherine was reputed to be a connoisseur of
Roquefort cheese.  From Wikipedia I learn that in the course of under 9
years she had had three stillborn daughters, and two liveborn sons who died
shortly after birth, and gave birth to the live daughter who later became
Queen Mary I.  
There seems to be no danger to a healthy breastfed baby if the mother
ingests the bacterium, but if the mother has traces of it on her hands from
food preparation and contaminates the baby through normal handling, I
imagine infection is a possibility.  There is nothing at all about
listeriosis in connection with breastfeeding on the Norwegian food safety
website; I am merely conjecturing on possible route of transmission to a
baby.  

Bon appetit! 
Rachel Myr
Looking forward to eating rakfisk http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rakfisk on
Friday, and glad I am not in any of the groups at risk from this foul
sounding but delicious dish

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