Toxoplasmosis & Pregnancy - Health Channel

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Toxoplasmosis & Pregnancy |

Toxoplasmosis is another of the conditions that pregnant women should take care of. For this, Dr. Ellen Schwartzbard, Obstetrician & Gynecologist at Baptist Health South Florida, recommends, if the patient has a cat as a pet and she does not clean its little box, she needs to stay away from its feces.

Also, the specialist states that using gloves to clean, not eating undercooked or rare meat and proper hand-washing can help to prevent Toxoplasmosis during pregnancy.

Transcript

How common are you seeing any kind of complications from toxoplasmosis what is your experience been with your patients so it’s a question I ask all my pregnant patients at that first visit do you have any cats so it is something that comes up so if they do have cats I do advise all my pregnant patients that they are not to change the litter box that’s something for the other people in the household they’re off the hook if they have to we say they use gloves but better to just try and stay away and to be as safe as you possibly can yeah that makes good sense have somebody else do it and again doctor it’s because as you said don’t touch the litter box it’s the feline species that are actually the problem right it’s and it’s coming in contacted skin or again what is it about the feline feces that can lead to this problem right so it’s if you were to actually ingest it you get it on your hands your hands to your mouth so you wear gloves if you wouldn’t want to actually ingest it so this is where you need to be careful just anything you can be the safest is what we recommend okay and you know doctor this is such an unusual or kind of a rare again infection I mean is this something that came about by how is it one woman just had this problem and it went from there I mean as far as the background goes how did how did we even know that this could be an issue well I mean just like any abnormality that has happened to a baby or a person as they find out that’s what the cause is but toxoplasmosis they also have in an undercooked meat that’s a recommendation I make to all my patients you have to be careful you don’t want to be eating that very rare meat also when you work in the garden in that soil if that could be contaminated also you really need to be careful with that hand-washing very very important.

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