help - worry about petrol...

[seasister]

Yesterday while I was filling up my scooter, I looked away and some petrol splashed over the top and into the compartment that is under the seat. I had a bag of shopping in there. I took everything out and cleaned it down...

There was an open packet of cream crackers (I'd had a few on route) that seemed perfectly dry and at the bottom of the bag. Tonight, while eating a few, I wondered what the slight smell was and realised the cracker smelt faintly of petrol. I had eaten all 3 crackers by then. And had a couple this morning.

Now I'm totally panicked. I went and threw the last lot up - which is horrible, but I felt so anxious - and now i'm really really worried that I've done the fetus damage. I'm 14 weeks.

You'll be fine

LOL, welcome to motherhood! You'll be panicking like that for the rest of your life so you may as well get used to it.

The good news though is that in reality it is very unlikely to have had any effect, even if it WAS coated in petrol (Which I doubt was anything more than absorbed scent).

The panic is a nightmare...unlike anything I've had before. The responsibility of it - thinking I've done something wrong. It's like hands around the neck.

Thanks for the reassurance. Appreciated.

you'll be fine, imagine the lawsuits if this could cause any real harm too

Yes, except most people filling up their cars are not swallowing petrol...

As I did the usual internet trawl for information to make myself feel worse better, I read about women who have cravings for the smell of petrol during pregnancy....

Look, forget all that. All kinds of things affect the development of a baby in utero and most things we can do nothing about. Even babies born to mothers with pregancy cravings of vodka 'ussually' come out fine.

So, - let's talk about how the baby is going to come out! You want something to worry about, worry about that!

StarofValkyrie - I know there are tons of things that could go wrong. But most of the time I don't know what they could be and assume that everything is going right. I don't know otherwise. This just freaked the f**k out of me because, well, it just did. Stupid but there you go.

Weirdly enough, I'm not that worried about the birth. Maybe becausese I can't do much about it except my make sure I'm in a good headspace with breathing and focus etc.

Sure there are tonnes of things that can go wrong, but miraculously enough, generally they don't. We wouldn't be a very robust species if they did.

Look, the thing is you can't do anything about it now anyway, and as I said before you'll be freaking out a lot more than that as a mother, so practise your techniques for dealing with it (which usually means no googling) and know too that stress has a 'known' affect on baby, unlike petrol-smelling crackers!

I think riding a scooter is possibly a bigger risk than eating a vaguely-petrol-flavoured cream cracker or two.

I don't mean to be unsupportive, really I don't - things like this could drive you loopy if you got too stressed about it all.

I totally agree. I just really panicked. Most of the time I'm actually very relaxed, suprisingly. I just could smell it and then thought I tasted it and ... then I went loopy