Crying over spilt egg yolk

[Pregnantandworried]

Hello,

I am in a bit of a state and I think I need someone to talk me down from my panic station. I am 23 weeks pg with my first and I have been soooooooo careful about food hygiene as I am quite nervy about being pregnant and I think that there are tons of things about pregnancy we can't do much about but I can make sure that food I prepare in my home is going to be safe.

My husband has fairly dodgy food hygiene standards anyway but I have made it clear again and again and again that he needs to be careful around any food I might eat (I tend to do most of the food prep anyway as we split chores and I generally like cooking so I thought this wouldn't be much of a problem).

This morning, he spilt egg yolk over the kitchen table and wiped it up with a hand towel as there were no cloths / kitchen rolls nearby ... Now I thought obviously he would have spritzed the table with some dettol and put the towel in to wash given he knows raw egg yolk is not great for pg ladies. But no, he hangs it back up and doesn't mention it so I've been using the towel all day to dry my hands and even dried an apple on it. I only found out because I asked him what the sticky stuff on the table was (he hadn't done a good job of cleaning it up).

I know I am pretty hormonal at the moment but I have now convinced myself that I am going to come down with salmonella and / or listeria. And I am furious with husband for being such a feckless twat.

On top of this, for the past few days, he's been taking the piss out of me for what he considers OCD behaviour around food ... The examples he gives include washing my hands between playing with our dog and preparing food, cleaning the sink after he'd left a raw chicken in it to defrost, insisting that he washed his hands after letting the cat lick butter off his fingers as he was about to manhandle my toast. I love our pets but I am pretty keen on keeping a good distance between them and my food even when I'm not pg.

He's got me feeling like a total nut case just because I am trying to maintain some hygiene for me and the little one, and now I am freaking out about whether I am going to get something grim from the egg yolk even though I know the chances are still small ... I feel really let down and sabotaged. Is that crazy?

I don't know how to calm down (he has not apologised BTW, just keeps saying I am making a big deal over nothing ... Which isn't helping).

Any advice or slaps with kippers much appreciated ... And thanks for reading through my mad rant ...

In the nicest possible way...you sound like a victim of the 'anti bac' society we live in.

Honestly, you need to relax and enjoy your pregnancy. Even if you swallowed the egg yolk whole, it's extremely unlikely to affect you or your baby.

Yeah I would want my DH to wash his hands if a cat licked them before he touched my toast, but that's quite normal imo and I'm not even pregnant.

Take sensible precautions by all means, but also remember the world has evolved thus far without being absorbed in Dettol

YANBU

I wouldn't be happy knowing that dried raw egg yolk was left on tea towel and table either. You will likely be fine by the way, but what he did what very lazy and if it had been left without you finding out could have caused food poisoning.

Plus cleaning hands between handling animals and preparing food (given that they lick their privates, eat sick and faeces and dig in dirt) seems good sense to me.

I would also clean sink after raw chicken had been in it too.

He is going to have to be more careful when your baby arrives.

lol. YABU.

Don't worry about the egg, British eggs with a Lionmark have been vaccinated against salmonella.

However, your DH sounds pretty disgusting. I am fairly lax but just yuk

You'll be fine, honestly. Chill out.

Thank you! I am trying not to be neurotic but all the doom laden info from just about everywhere telling me not eat raw egg yolk had sent me a bit bonkers! Good to hear some sanity... Xx

YANBU. I would have put the towel in the wash and wiped the table off with some spray on a sponge. My DH is still learning but I'd have expected him to at least put the towel in the wash and get out a fresh one.

I don't know if it would help to show him the NHS guidelines on food hygiene for pregnant ladies? Maybe if you could explain to him what salmonella is and how it can harm the foetus. Try to avoid any histrionics or exaggeration, it will have the opposite effect of what you are trying to achieve. Maybe tell him it is better to be safe than sorry and that you appreciate all the special effort he is making to give you a safe and easy pregnancy. (I use positive reinforcement on my DH when I can stay rational remember)

Oh and I didnt know that about the lion mark eggs

I think you are very unlikely to be ill from the egg yolk incident. It's done, try not to worry. When is your next ante-natal appointment? Can you ring your midwife in the morning?

But in general you are absolutely, totally not being unreasonable. The examples you gave are all fairly basic examples of good food hygiene. I would be worrying about his hygiene round the baby too.

Honestly OP I'm not saying you shouldn't take any notice of guidelines, but you'll relax yourself more if you remember that they are only guidelines.

I remember worrying with DS2 about a 'slightly snotty' fried egg I'd eaten in a cafe...then I remembered that with DS1, no such guideline existed and we survived!

Good luck with the birth and please remember that even when the baby's born, the odd germ or two will help build their immune system.

The egg thing in pregnancy is insane. You and your baby have nothing to fear from a good British egg.

However, your dh is very slack, and I would want my partner to at least wash his hands after fondling the farking licky pets and making my toast. ew.

There are almost 7 billion humans on the planet. Clearly we are not that delicate.

Your DH sounds gross, but seriously try to chill out a bit.

Wait until you have a toddler, they will eat anything (obviously as long as it isn't actually food).

Do bear in mind that there is some possibility that the increased incidence of asthma, excema and various other allergies has something to do with all the anticbacterial, sterilize-everything frenzy. A little bit of dirt gives the immune system a workout.

OP I wouldn't worry about the egg yolk.

Your DH sounds pretty disgusting though, a bit of basic hygiene wouldn't go amiss!

I insist on regular handwashing and wiping down of surfaces with clean cloths. We don't use any of the anti bac products - a speck of dirt doesn't hurt (it rhymes so it must be true! ) and besides hot soapy water is enough.

A developing foetus does have different needs to a toddler so you do need to be more careful but there's no need to panic.

I just wanted to clarify, I don't think you have anything to worry about re British eggs and I absolutely agree about dirt being good for the immune system. I'm very anti-anti-bacterials. My dad's an allergist. But I'm still all for good food hygiene and hand washing.

YANBU to be annoyed with your husband. Cleanliness is next to godliness and all that. He sounds like he needs some lessons in hygiene and housework.
YABU to be so stressed about the egg in relation to your pregnancy. Calm down, relax and enjoy your pregnancy. Stress is no good for you and the baby.

The egg wont hurt you as long as it's from a shop - ie lionmarked and not from your garden hens.

The rest of it though....ewww! He needs to understand the basics of having animals in your house - wash your freaking hands DH!

That's a bit unreasonable: I'm also pregnant and the main reason why I'd be a bit annoyed if DH did that is because dried egg is a right pain to get off things.

Yes he should have used a dishcloth and got all the egg off the table straight away, and the hand towel should have gone straight in the washing machine (with a full load) so the egg didn't set into it. But a bit of raw egg transfered to your hands is extremely unlikely to give you salmonella.

Why are you drying apples anyway? Surely it would be easier and cleaner just to shake the excess water off?

Whilst I think you don't need to worry about the egg thing from a health point of view, I do massively feel your pain over your DH and his sloppy habits.

My DH can be, shall we say, flamboyant in the kitchen and also has the bad habit of plonking meat trays still swirling with raw meat juice into the sink or onto the draining board...

And there has been more than one occasion since DD was born that I have had to carefully re wash various types of baby paraphernalia when I have found random cooking pots, utensils and basically crap dumped on the draining board on top of my sparkly clean and ready to be sterlised bits and pieces

I'm pleased to say that he has improved loads and we are getting there, but God Knows it's so annoying

I eat cake mix and raw egg when preg

Yummy and lion stamped eggs. I mean how many times have I had salmonella before?

Nil!

Thank you all for your v sensible words of advice on the egg issue and DH's rank lack of hygiene. Just to reassure everyone that our house is not a sterile nightmare ... But two friends of mine have lost babies in the second trimester because of food poisoning so I am doing everything I can to avoid the two worst culprit bugs which, as I understand it, are listeria and salmonella hence the panic.

However, I am hugely reassured that salmonella in eggs is incredibly rare what with all the vaccinations in place and am now slightly confused as to why all the info I have on it is quite so panic inducing - I guess it is better to be safe than sorry and avoid known risks even if they are tiny.

The DH hygeine issue is still pissing me off though as I don't think it's OCD not to want to have such close contact with grubby pet muzzles and food! Oh well ... I think I will make him read the nhs guidelines on food hygiene in pregnancy and ask him to think about if he'd be happy putting his food in all the places our dog puts his nose and, if not, to think about washing his hands more often.

Thank you all again for snapping me out of my hysteria!