Pets and Pregnancy: How to Protect Yourself and Your Baby from Potential Risks
- Pregnancy
-
- UPDATED NOVEMBER 02, 2024
by Tasha Mayberry
710 shares
So, you are expecting a baby. An exciting and wonderful time when you need to protect yourself and your future baby from everything that could harm you. But dangers are not only on the street, sometimes they lie in wait for expectant mothers right in their home, where you least expect to meet them.
One of these dangers is pets. Of course, your pet is your most beloved and dear one, and will never, under any circumstances, hurt you. But this article will talk about something else – about diseases transmitted from animals to humans, which can harm the future child even before it is born. To better understand the health of your pet and the possible risks, you should pay attention to the dog dna kit – a kit for analyzing dog DNA. With its help, you can identify the predisposition of your four-legged friend to certain diseases and take precautions in time.
There are only about 150 common diseases for humans and animals. However, everything is not so scary: in our area, you can encounter at most 30 species: the rest are African and Asian exotics. However, it is necessary to know the diseases that occur in our latitudes, as well as ways to prevent and treat them. Below are the most common diseases transmitted to humans and posing a threat to pregnant women, as well as precautions.
Toxoplasmosis
Carriers are cats. Toxoplasmosis is a parasitic disease. About every hundredth pregnant woman is infected. The disease itself is not dangerous, most often occurs in a latent form, and is similar in symptoms to a common cold. Moreover, if a person has been ill once, then antibodies are formed in his blood that prevent re-infection.
However, if infection occurs during pregnancy, there is a serious threat to the fetus. Since one of the routes of infection is transplacental, the mother, not knowing the true cause of the cough and drinking raspberry tea for a cold, exposes the baby to serious danger. A fetus infected in utero may develop deafness, blindness, and nervous system pathologies.
Precautions: take a blood test for antibodies, and if none are found, then communicate with cats less. If you cannot place your own cat anywhere during this period, then clean the litter box after the cat only with rubber gloves, and feed only food that has been heat-treated.
Rabies
Carriers are dogs and cats. Rabies is an infectious disease. Its effect on the body of the unborn child has been little studied, for the reason that the disease itself is fatal. This means – you can’t get sick! Precautions: vaccinate your dog or cat against rabies every year. If you are bitten by an unfamiliar animal, immediately go to the clinic for an immunization course. Now, of course, this is not 40 injections into the stomach, but the treatment process is still unpleasant. Therefore, it is worth getting vaccinated before pregnancy.
Ornithosis
Carriers – birds. Ornithosis is an infectious disease. It is not transmitted to the fetus through the placenta, but it can seriously harm the mother. The disease is characterized by a sharp increase in temperature (above 39 degrees) and can cause complications, including meningitis and pneumonia. All this can provoke an abortion, especially in the early stages. Precautions: there is currently no high-quality vaccine against ornithosis. Therefore, the most competent strategy is to refrain from contact with domestic parrots, canaries, and city pigeons.
Salmonellosis
Carriers – turtles, other reptiles, and less often rodents. It’s scary to admit, but about 90% of domestic reptiles are sources of this acute infectious disease that affects the digestive system. The child is still in danger of infection, but the mother will have a very hard time due to severe dehydration, high temperature, vomiting, and diarrhea (which can even trigger the process of contractions). Precautions: after each contact with the animal, you should thoroughly wash your hands with soap.
Helminths
The carrier is almost any animal. Helminths, or worms, are parasitic worms that live in the digestive system. They threaten anemia, vitamin deficiency, and miscarriage. They can develop in almost any internal organ: heart, lungs, liver. Precautions: check your pet with a veterinarian for helminths. If any are found, the whole family should take a course of antihelminthic drugs.
Allergic reactions
The source is almost any animal. Even if your pet has never caused you any inconvenience, during pregnancy you may develop an allergy to wool, feathers, droppings, or even dry pet food. The symptoms are not very pleasant – from skin reactions to respiratory problems. And the only precaution is to limit contact with your “little brother”. As they say, forewarned is forearmed! Follow these simple restrictions and let your pregnancy proceed without illnesses and troubles.