Severe anxiety re potentially undercooked chicken

[OneJollyKoala]

Panicked first time potential mum and poster here.

Am 10 weeks pregnant and have been horrifically anxious about food safety since finding out - terrified of toxoplasmosis I won’t even eat ingredients.

Today and occasionally though I went to a salad place for lunch - I know salad bars aren’t recommended but this place is extremely fresh and everything is made in front of you.

It’s anxiety inducing enough having to reassure myself they’ve washed the salad leaves etc. Anyway, I had chunks of chicken in my salad today and was feeling particularly anxious so went to eat some and then took it out of my mouth to dissect it as I was so paranoid. It was completely solid in texture but the colour is varied and a bit pink - see attached. Don’t attack me but I then stupidly ate it as I reassured myself it was cooked and then checked all of the other bits of chicken which were fine.

I am now in bits and have convinced myself I’ll have toxoplasmosis from this - I feel like I’m so irresponsible I don’t deserve to be a mother as this is my fault for choosing to take a risk and eat a chicken salad. I don’t know what to do.

i don’t know if there’s any point having a toxo blood test as I’ve read that birth defects don’t present until after birth so I’d have no idea whether I’ve caused harm and will probably just have to terminate.

feel like such an idiot given how strict I normally am - I don’t even eat anything pre packaged such as hummus from a supermarket due to listeria risk. Can’t believe I’ve ruined everything by being so idiotic today

First of all the risk of contracting toxoplasmosis is low so please don't worry. You and baby are highly likely to be absolutely fine. Secondly I think you really need to see your GP about your anxiety and paranoia. Wishing you all the best.

Was it chicken breast ? That looks a bit like the kind of pinkness that is on chicken thigh meat when cooked. You are very unlikely to contract anything anyway.

Your anxiety is out of control
What you’re describing isn’t in any way usual behaviour
You really need lots of help and support with this now
nothing anyone can say will reassure you because you’re catastrophising to such a degree
do you have a partner? I think you need to talk to someone about this and they can also help you find support

The title of your thread says it all - 'severe anxiety' - you need to seek help. Why haven't you already, if you know you have anxiety that severe?

If you are considering terminating the life of a perfectly healthy baby your anxiety is so far out of hand that you need help with it urgently. You won't be able to see it, but you really really need help with this. Do not kill your baby until you have talked to a medic about sorting your mental health.

If you genuinely can't handle it and go ahead with a termination, you need to accept that you won't ever have children, because there will be something like this in every single pregnancy, and you can't keep doing that. I'm not saying that to be nasty, but to hopefully make you see how completely impossible it is to control life and risk to this extent.

You need to seek urgent help for your mental health OP. This isn’t a normal level of anxiety.

I just googled toxoplasmosis in pregnancy in the UK, and it's relatively common - up to 1 in 50 pregnancies. But congenital toxoplasmosis (where it actually causes problems) is 1 in 100,000 pregnancies. That's how unlikely it is to cause any issues EVEN if the chicken was raw (which it probably wasn't) and EVEN if the chicken was in the 5% or so infected with t. gondii.

Risk of stillbirth - 1 in 200.
Risk of birth defects (all) - 1 in 30.
Risk of autism - 1 in 100 (est).
All much much higher than 1 in 100,000. You need to find a way to accept that life is risky. You need help to do this.

First of all, I hope you are Ok OP. Health anxiety can be crippling (I know I've been through it myself - also food related BTW)

Please seek help. It was the best thing I did. I had health anxiety for 10 years, far too long I wished it has addressed it earlier. It will only get worse if you don't seek help, getting pregnant was what made me seek help as I knew I didn't want to transfer my fear and anxiety onto my family.

You can do a self referral online and you will likely be offered Cognitive Behavioural Therapy. On the referral, state that this is severally affecting your quality of life and that you are pregnant. This changed my life.

Thank you so much. Really helpful to see more practical stats!

I appreciate I am very anxious but pregnancy is such a stressful time - was not expecting the amount of tough love here. I obviously wouldn’t terminate a healthy pregnancy and was referring to if I had toxoplasmosis that impacted the baby …. Which would be awful.

Thank you - I’ve had health anxiety before and think all of the inherent risks and uncertainties of pregnancy and the lack of control are probably playing into this!

I had chicken like this just a few weeks ago. A quick Google search told me colour isn't a sure fire way of knowing doneness, and even fully cooked chicken can appear slightly pink. Never thought about it again since then. I'm 16 weeks and sometimes feel bubbles popping in my lower abdomen which I'm convinced is little one moving around happily, despite me also having had slighty pink chicken. My 12 week scan was done a few days after I ate the chicken and every thing came back perfect.

I say this with respect - I would go to your GP about your anxiety as this seems very severe. Maybe try a vegetarian diet for now?

Thank you - super reassuring! I’ve been eating vegan when out but was feeling a bit more relaxed today and then this happened … I’ll revert to veggie / vegan food for a while perhaps!

a good point I suppose that if the scan is okay, things should be fine. Thank you!

Is there a veiny part in that chunk of chicken OP? It usually looks pink around where one of those veiny bits is. It's not my place to give any sort of tough love but while pregnancy is of course a very worrying time, this level of anxiety is not the norm. And absolutely NOT something you should have to deal with alone. Seek urgent help from your Perinatal Mental Health service to help you, you deserve to enjoy your pregnancy. I wish you the best with it all.

You need to seek proper help OP. It’s not tough love to say that. It’s true.

Hi OP, I can only echo what others have said that this level of anxiety is out of control and definitely not normal.
It is likely to get worse as your pregnancy progresses so you really need to get some help now to get it under control.

Good luck

Awww I know how you feel but I promise it’s fine!

I could have written this post during my pregnancy. I have bad health anxiety and was soooo anxious about toxoplasmosis i was too scared to eat out anywhere for ages and double checked dairy was pasteurised (even tho unless you’re got milk directly from a cow it probably is lol) There were at least a couple of occasions where I was so worried I’d eaten undercooked meat and my baby had toxoplasmosis and it took other people rationalising how unlikely it was for me to eventually stop worrying

i also had a few friends who were pregnant at the same time and seeing how relaxed they were (not checking food in restaurants, eating salami etc) helped me feel a lot more relaxed so by my third trimester I didn’t worry at all :)

looking at the statistics should make you less worried but I agree probably good to try to manage health anxiety when you’re pregnant. I got cbt through nhs when I was pregnant which helped with general anxiety and if it makes you feel better even tho I am the most anxious person I’ve not been too neurotic / anxious about my baby’s health once they’re here! I thought I’d be running to the hospital at every sniffle but you do really have an instinct and would know if there was something to really be concerned about

I hope you feel reassured now and have a relaxing rest of your pregnancy :)