Petting zoo fears

[sunflower185]

Hi all, Please forgive slightly paranoid post from anxious mum .. today my husband went to a petting zoo with my son and now I'm worried they may have brought some disease/bacteria back from the animals . I'm 7 months pregnant and keep reading about toxioplasmosis etc. Am I over worrying ? I asked my husband to change his clothes but he says I'm being silly.

I think you're over reacting. As long as he washed their hands after touching lambs/goats then you're fine. Presumably he didn't rub any newborn lambs on his clothing?

Toxoplasmosis is spread through not washing hands after touching contaminated soil or the poo of infected animals or eating meat from an animal with the disease (which is why rare meat isn't recommended). So as long as they both washed their hands, and didn't roll around in sheep poo, you will be absolutely fine! Gardening with an open cut on your finger without gloves on is more risky.

You just need to be careful if there's newborn lambs, goats or cows...but even then they would have to be touching a very young one with fluid still on it etc. The advice is not go near pregnant sheep or lambs but it is specifically birth and the fluid for them that's the issue.

At a petting farm providing he's washed his hands it's v unlikely he would have touched such a young animal and you should be fine.

Kindly, you’re overreacting on a colossal scale unless you helped birth a lamb, and lambing season has finished anyway.

So long as hands were washed, it's all fine. I went to a petting zoo shortly before I had my son. I touched all the animals and washed hands frequently. He's perfectly healthy.

Thank you so much al, I appreciate a lot the really clear and candid advice!! Definitely going to chill out about it now ;-)