Food poisoning from mussels

[MusselTryHarder]

After a week of morning sickness and at the end of my holiday, I decided to have some mussels which I'd been fancying all week (when not nauseous). I ate a good portion of well cooked delicious mussels for dinner last night but ended up two hours later chained to the toilet with pretty severe diarrhoea which lasted about twelve hours. I'm currently 7 weeks pregnant, and after some googling scared myself silly about the risks of shellfish poisoning to developing embryos. I phoned the doctor, they didn't know what to make of it really and weren't particularly reassuring. I was told off for eating shellfish in the first place, which I can see the point of now I retrospect, but the NHS website says it's fine. I'm more concerned with the risk to the baby having probably ingested some really nasty sounding toxin that could cause some serious issues.

Anyone had any experience of shellfish poisoning in pregnancy and can reassure me?? This isn't my first pregnancy but in the last one anything that could go wrong did go wrong, and I'm concerned that my luck is about to repeat itself...

No words of wisdom…but just to say…you are not the only one! 15 weeks and did exactly the same with a bowl of spaghetti and clams! 2nd pregnancy and maybe it was a wake up call, I am definitely being a bit more relaxed than with my first!In the end cooked shellfish is full of good stuff for you- diarrhoea could have come from anything and try not to worry! That’s what I am going with for now!

Hopefully your 12 week scan will help assess if there is anything significant to worry about but I'm not sure that a doctor or anyone can reassure you completely until then,
But all you can do is take your folic acid and look after yourself until then as best you can.
Go easy on yourself, it could have happened to anyone.

It’s known that there are a portion of bivalve shellfish that contain norovirus . Not saying this definitely the cause, and shellfish are deemed safe by the nhs during pregnancy.

stay hydrated and cool. Take care.

Food poisoning can come on that quickly but usually takes a bit longer. It can even take days. It could be coincidence, maybe your tummy was just a bit off?

Pregnant women can eat cooked shellfish so the doctor shouldn't have been telling you off for eating it! What a dick. Enjoy your food, it sounded delicious!

It's hard not to worry but our bodies are designed to protect our baby and can cope with all sorts

Thanks everyone for the replies. I'm feeling better now, and as it was so short-lived it could have been anything and hopefully no damage has been done. Very much looking forward to the scans to check.

Swissmummy glad I'm not the only one!! What rotten luck though, they say shellfish is fine so long as it's cooked, and it's got loads of good stuff for the baby. It's certainly put me off having any more for a good long while- shame as I love seafood! Hope you are feeling better too x

I became completely intolerant to shellfish when I fell pregnant. Even a tiny bit in a paella would make my stomach turn itself inside out. I’m okay with most shellfish now (11 years later), except scallops. It might be something like that rather than food poisoning?

I had horrendous food poisoning once at centre parks from a curry and was v early days pregnant - it was awful. Said DC is now snoring upstairs and has just passed all his GCSEs.

It's unlikely to have food poisoning given the quick onset and that it was pretty short lived.

I had food poisoning at 10 weeks pg. MW told me not to worry so early on in pg, it would have been more worrying after 12 weeks.