Help - have just found out our car has been leaking carbon monoxide whilst driving - have i damaged my unborn child?

[Stigaloid]

Am seriously freaking out

am 36+1 weeks pregnant and we have been having car trouble for a little while so took it into the garage to finally get serviced and fixed. Turns out the catalytic converter is broken and the manifold has a leak in it (all over my head and too technical for me) what it means is that it is too expensive for us to fix (well over £1000) and we have no car to get to the hospital with (help) but worse than that, it has apparently been leaking carbon monoxide into the car through the air system as we have been driving.

I am now petified as to what damage this has done to my baby. I don't know how long this problem has been going on for or how much carbon monoxide i have breathed in but i am scared witless that i have brain damaged my child.

I can't stop crying at the moment and don't know what to do or who to turn to.

Help!

Have you had symptoms of carbon monoide poisoning?

You should speak to you midwife/GP.

I've left a message with the mid-wife but not heard back as yet. I don't know if i have experienced symptons or not. Have been quick nauseous throughout the pregnancy but haven't passed out. But haven't had the easiest pregnancy but just assumed i wasn't a lucky one who sailed through it all.

I just feel helpless thinking i may have damaged my baby without even knowing it and don't know how to deal with it all.

It always seems like your car has been playing up for longer than it really has - probably the baby was already well formed before it started. I'm sure it will be ok

it's good that you haven't had any symptoms yourself, so I hope your midwife can reassure you.

I lived in a rented house in which the gas fire AND gas oven turned out to have been illegally installed and were leaking significantly, all the time I was carrying ds1 and for the first 8 months of his life. I did have some of the symptoms of carbon monoxide poisoning too (headaches, disorientation, minor blackouts etc) but we just put them down to the pregnancy. DS1 didn't suffer ANY ill effects at all. Absolutely none.

You sound terrified , please try not to worry. I'm not an expert on this but it is so so so unlikely any harm will have come to your baby.

it was probably a minute amount that has had no effect on you and certainly not the baby. please try not to worry.

Thank you all so much for your lovely words. Greensleeves - thank you so much for your post! It's good to know i am not the only one who this has happened to and that your DS is okay. I am trying to focus positively that it will all be all right but am pretty scared. Doesn't help being emotional but can't stop crying out of worry. I know there is nothing i can do but feel so helpless and horrified at the thought that something could have happened to my baby and he isn't even born yet

This isn't scientific, but there was a storyline in a medical drama (ER?) where a family were all seriously ill with carbon monoxide poisoning - except the pregnant woman - something to do with how they metabolise carbon monoxide. Granted, it's not exactly an article in the British Medical Journal - but these stories often have some sort of factual basis! So IF this storyline reflects medical reality you might actually have been the one least affected.