Help! I ate a medium burger 😭

[Fate88]

I’m freaking out, my husband and I ordered some burgers from burger 1, I ordered mine well done and my husband got his medium and I accidentally took two or three bites of his burger thinking it was mine and now I’m panicking. Have I just hurt my baby. It was pink. I’m terrified, please please please if this or something similar has happened to you and your baby has turned out ok please let me know. I asked the nurse at my clinic and she and a doctor said that there is no need to test for toxoplasmosis because it’s very unlikely that I would get it by a undercooked hamburger, but how can I enjoy the rest of my pregnancy when there is a chance that my child could be unwell and it’s all my fault. I’m 25 weeks today 😭😭😭

@dementedpixie

After extensive googling the advice to avoid peanuts in pregnancy changed in 2009. Before that you were advised to avoid them and after that you were OK to have them as there wasn't enough evidence to show avoiding them helped prevent peanut allergies

Sums it up.

I’m also a bit about the changing formula advice, the perfect preps and so on, but I won’t open that bag of cats fully here.

I mean, there are people with accidental pregnancies who drink and do cocaine on the regular before finding out they're pregnant and their babies turn out fine.

A lot of fear mongering involved with pregnancies. You haven't harmed your baby by taking 3 bites out of a medium hamburger.

@BuyDirt

saraclara

Lots of things happened years ago, doesn’t mean they were right or the best thing. It’s only right that pregnant women are given as much info as possible on the knowledge we have at the time.
It reminds me of my MIL justifying not putting my niece in a car seat a few years ago aged 2, because they didn’t back in her day and her children didn’t die. 🙄

I think @saraclara is right to offer that perspective, though. To show the real life risk level.

It’s true. Almost every over 35 DID survive some or all of this stuff in utero. Yet the NHS aren’t nuanced in their advice and seem quite regularly to be putting the fear of god into pregnant women, which is excessive.

OP, the reason you aren't supposed to eat pink meat during pregnancy is because of the risk of toxoplasmosis.

Where I live, they take toxoplasmosis very seriously and pregnant women have blood tests every month to check they haven't been infected by it.

When I was pregnant I asked my obstetrician whether pregnancy made you more likely to catch toxoplasmosis, or whether it was just that the consequences if you do catch it can be very severe. He confirmed that it was the latter.

What I took from this was that if I hadn't caught toxoplasmosis in 35 years of eating bloody and cured meat, gardening without gloves on and fondling the odd cat, I was very unlikely to catch it from a few bites of a medium rare burger.

Hope this puts your mind at rest somewhat.

PS - if you have ever had outdoor cats and changed their litter boxes, you may well already be immune to toxoplasmosis anyway.

@Thoosa

I remember in my last pregnancy absentmindedly scoffing peanut M&Ms quite a few times. And blue cheese once. No problems came of it.

Why can’t you have m&m’s?

@whysoserious123

5 days past and no food poisoning= you are fine

You're confusing toxoplasmosis with listeria.

@HogDogKetchup peanuts used to be on the banned list during pregnancy

OP just want to tell you I know exactly how you feel and to give you a (((hug)))

I unintentionally ate some rare meat during my first pregnancy (similar situation to you, but in a restaurant) and being a terrible worrier I got myself into a right state and couldn't sleep.

I was so worried that my MW got a blood test done. Not only had I not got toxo from the meat, it showed that I'd already had toxo in the past, had antibodies and was immune.

If you've had pets, especially cats, or have eaten rare meat a lot in the past, you'll almost certainly have had it. I also looked up at the time how likely meat was to have it in, and how likely it was to be infections etc and I worked out the chance was tiny. And my baby was fine and is now a strapping 6-foot teen.

Hope you're feeling better and calmer. Look after yourself and don't beat yourself up about this.

I think @saraclara is right to offer that perspective, though. To show the real life risk level.

It’s true. Almost every over 35 DID survive some or all of this stuff in utero. Yet the NHS aren’t nuanced in their advice and seem quite regularly to be putting the fear of god into pregnant women, which is excessive.

Thank you @Thoosa. Exactly that. If I was pregnant now of course I would follow what guidance there is today. Virtually all of us do because we want the best for our unborn child. But as the OP demonstrates, the fear engendered by the lack of nuance in the message, is dangerous in itself.
When people are terrified that half a glass of wine or three bites of a medium burger is going to give their child a disability, something is badly wrong in the message.

I suspect that there are more children being brought up by very anxious parents today, because even before conception, mothers are being constantly told that almost every single thing they come across is a potential threat to their child.

Why can’t you have m&m’s?

For 10-15 years it’s peanuts that were firmly forbidden.

The NHS website is hardly terrifying. And in my experience midwives are not making pregnant women panic, they were very laid back about it all in both my pregnancies. This information and advice must be available.
I know someone who has a child with feral alcohol syndrome. She didn’t drink extremely heavily but she did drink regularly. Her first response was to blame her consultant and midwives for not making it clearer. What are they supposed to do?

*fetal

If anything it's your anxiety thats going to affect the baby rather than a couple bites of beef. High levels of cortisol isn't a good thing.

You need to make that a priority.

@KosherDill

My mother lived on rare meat, coffee and whiskey during her pregnancy with me, and a packet of cigarettes a day.

I'm healthy, happy, high IQ, never sick with more than a cold lo the many decades.

Don't worry another moment.

Wowsers

@BuyDirt

The NHS website is hardly terrifying. And in my experience midwives are not making pregnant women panic, they were very laid back about it all in both my pregnancies. This information and advice must be available. I know someone who has a child with feral alcohol syndrome. She didn’t drink extremely heavily but she did drink regularly. Her first response was to blame her consultant and midwives for not making it clearer. What are they supposed to do?

Maybe they need to vary the emphasis by risk level, and evidence base?

I can remember saying to a friend AFTER i had accidentally eaten her peanut M&Ms that I would have to concentrate on not doing it again, but wasn’t too worried because allergies don’t run in the family and the idea that exposure to a substance in the womb would give you an allergy seemed slightly dubious to me anyway.

She was horrified and made the direct comparison to boozing, which just made me laugh. But people without any kind of statistical training, (or medical degree or science experience or whatever) probably don’t think as much about what’s behind the recommendations. They just follow them, quite reasonably.

Maybe they need to vary the emphasis by risk level, and evidence base?

The NHS website already talks about risk level. For toxoplasmosis, it says the risk is small. The same for dairy, it clearly says the risk small.
I think the advice is very clear. They can’t help if some people ignore it or other get extremely anxious about it. Everything says the risks are small, some people will worry even when told this by the NHS website, their midwife etc. But there should be more help for anyone dealing with anxiety.

I don't think it's helpful to suggest that the OP's anxiety may have a negative impact on her pregnancy and her baby, because that is likely to make her even more anxious.

She should obviously try to manage her anxiety for the sake of her own wellbeing.

For what it's worth, I was extremely anxious during my pregnancy following five miscarriages and my baby is absolutely fine.

Fine let's scare OP. If you have any symptoms ( which you may not if you have it) then symptoms will show between 5-23 days. There we go happy now @babyjellyfish

I ate rare steaks with blue cheese sauce whenever i wanted whilst pregnant. Ds is fine. Unclench.

The first time I went out to eat when pregnant this happened to me. Me and baby are both fine. I've also had a couple of tiny glasses of Prosecco which was also fine

I had awful cravings for raw meat and fish in my 2nd pregnancy. So I had rare steaks, and checked the temp with a meat thermometer. DD2 has suffered no ill effects.

Relax OP. Pregnancy guidelines change as we learn more. Used to be that you weren't supposed to eat nuts, then you WERE supposed to eat them.

I’ve had sushi for the last 4 days in a row - I don’t know where (British) women got it into their heads that you can’t eat sushi when pregnant, just use your brain, keep mercury (ie tuna) limited, only get from reputable places blah blah.

I just emailed the nurse at my clinic and she told me she will set up an appointment for me next week due to the amount of anxiety I’m having. Honestly this has been consuming my life. I cried like 3 times today, missed my class ( I’m in college) and my poor husband had to come home from work and cook something even tho I was home all day doing nothing but I couldn’t get myself to make anything because I was online googling and driving myself crazy. Hopefully my doc will help with the anxiety. I can’t imagine how bad I will be once the baby gets here.

Good idea to see someone about it. And don't worry about when the baby is here. Just commit to seeking help when you need it.