Stuff to avoid while ttc

[Biscuitbreaker]

Am panicking... maybe too much.

I have been reading about things to avoid while pregnant, which seems to be everything! Cheese, eggs, painkillers, bleaching your hair, bleaching your teeth, cat litter, certain essential oils...

I am ttc at the moment, and if I am on schedule, ovulating now.
How important is it to avoid all potentially dangerous stuff while you're ovulating - just in case you do actually conceive?

I think it's up to you, frankly, but the only thing I avoided was coffee (I am quite sensitive to it, had had an mc and read that it could raise your risk) and cat litter. I drank in moderation (prob 5 or 6 units a week). I really wouldn't be concerned about avoiding foods 'just in case' until a pregnancy is confirmed. However, I'm sure others will be along who will disagree, although I expect if anything did go wrong you'd be hard-pressed to find a doctor who would tell you it was because you'd had soft-boiled egg or a brie sandwich. You can get food-poisoning from any food source, and you can't stop eating altogether (that's no good for developing embryos ).

Good luck!

Calm down. As long as you're avoiding class a drugs and gin by the pint for breakfast stop worrying so much.

The list of things not recommended once you're pregnant (though many do still eat them, in other countries they wouldn't think to even suggest you avoid them) isn't that long really.

Cheese for example, it's just the runny, smelly, unpasteurised stuff that's vile anyway.

Eggs, fine as long as they're cooked properly.

Painkillers, well paracetamol are fine so stick to them if necessary and nothing else.

Cat litter- it's animal faeces in general.

It looks daunting, but it's not really.

At this point when you're ttc, you can easily avoid these things if you want but I think more important to you right now is making sure you are getting the recommended extras. Folic acid for example.

But what about bleach? (Household and hair?) I may not even be pregnant, but I am already worried that I have done something potentially harmful. :-(

I wouldn't suggest drinking bleach, but otherwise you'll be fine

In the last couple of days I have literally had runny eggs for breakfast, had my hair bleached, changed the cat litter trays. Anything I could have possibly done wrong apart from knocking back the class As!

If I have conceived this week, and there's no way of knowing... could I have done any damage yet?

Bleach eh? ... I haven't really heard much about that. On the whole, I think that it might be counterproductive to radically deprive yourself of things while TTC, given that there's no knowing if it will take a month or a year or longer. Because there is no placenta for the first six weeks of pregnancy anyway, I think that the basic approach as outlined by ShowofHands sounds just fine. Taking folic acid is the major one really. And avoiding ibuprofen apparently.

It's unlikely biscuitbreaker Just relax, stressing yourself out about these things is pointless.

No you haven't done any damage. If you're only ovulating now, then there is no placenta, there is no risk of things crossing to the bunch of cells that are the start of a baby. It takes a couple of weeks for the cells to travel down the fallopian tube and embed into the uterus lining.

And the risks of runny eggs and the like are tiny anyway. Like I said, people in France don't bother with this no runny cheese, no wine, no runny eggs thing and they don't have significantly higher rates of incidence than here. It's precautionary.

But right now, no you haven't damaged any potential embryo.

Thanks showofhands. Thanks all of you actually. I'm so glad of any replies because I don't have anyone I can ask these things, even if I just need a slap!

And the cat litter tray, it's the toxoplasmosis risk isn't it? I assume you didn't touch the litter? You should avoid it really if you're being strict but the toxoplasmosis risk is also present with gardening/unwashed vegetables. You carry on functioning as normal, you make the odd amendment as well as reasonable precautions you take anyway like washing vegetable and not touching animal faeces, you relax safe in the knowledge that we've been making babies for thousands of years. People go out and get roaring drunk, smoke, take ibuprofen for the hangover, some people do worse and take worse and find out they are pregnant hours later. Only very, very occasionally do these things have an effect and in cases where you're usually seriously abusing your body.

It's daunting when you're trying to get pregnant, stay pregnant etc. I remember it well. You're going to be just fine. Good luck with ttc.

If you've had a cat for ages (or if you had one as a kid) it's quite possible that you've already had toxiplasmosis and are now immune. Your doctor can do a blood test to let you know so it's one less thing to worry about.

However, the best thing about being pregnant IMO is Dh being on cat litter duty 100% of the time .

Re unpasturised cheeses, the risk is listeria. So it's not a case of, if you eat some brie it could harm the baby, but a case of if you eat some brie and get listeria (which you would definitely know about if you got it) you could harm the baby. But seriously, how many times have you ever got listeria?? The risk is low. As SoH says, a lot of this advice is super super paranoid precautionary

Is this your first time TTC biscuitbreaker? You should come over and join the first time frolickers It's less scary when you can talk to others in the same boat

Hi biscuit. Re the toxoplasmosis, it's highly likely that you've had it - I was told that most people get it as children. If you are worried ask for them to test your blood for the antibodies when they take your bloods for the usual pg tests.

Other than that, SoH is completely right. Please try not to worry.

Yes it is, I guess that much is obvious! My biggest worry I think has been the bleach absorption, and also cold and flu medication.

Me too sweetie

I'm on silly amounts of medication, it's better for any potential baby if you are healthy so I wouldn't worry about it.

Do you know, I've had cats my whole life, still have them and when I was tested for toxoplasmosis antibodies, I didn't have them. GP was very, very, very surprised. I was tested for it for a different reason btw. It is likely you've had it actually.

re cold and flu meds, they don't do much other than alleviate symptoms anyway. You don't need them in general, so certainly easy to avoid when pg. A paracetamol, a warm lemon and honey drink, some steam, a blanket, a good dvd, some chocolate. All as effective as one of those expensive remedies.

If you mean, getting highlights done - I was told it was fine and have had them done while pregnant.

And yes, how many times have you/your friends/your family had listeria?

Risks are minute.

And actually, you can get a blood test to see even you even need to worry about toxoplasmosis. If you have had cats for a long time, you may be immune. You can get a blood test to confirm it. I'm not immune, sadly...

Sorry X post obviously

Most important thing is that you take folic acid while TTC. Don't worry about anything else.

One thing I found out about in very early pregnancy was that I wasn't supposed to be taking vitamin A, but hadn't realised that made my multivits out of bounds.

If you do take vitamins, switch to a concenption and pregnancy one.

Passionberry, I don't mean highlights I mean proper bleach! You are all very sensible, and I will try to calm myself down.

[completely irrelevant emoticon]

My friend and I tried to bleach our hair with Domestos. It didn't work.

Ha ha. Not surprised! I bet you smelled great though!