Pregnant and Listeria Anxiety?

September 22, 2015 4:01 AM

You are not my doctor, but perhaps you can help me anyway. I'm 17 weeks pregnant; two weeks ago, I had a low fever, sudden vomiting (in the absence of any previous morning sickness), and some flu-like symptoms. My doctor gave me IV fluids and sent me home. Now I'm worried I had listeria. Help?

At the time I was sick, I wasn't able to reach my midwife, so I was advised just to go to the walk-in clinic (not just for pregnant women.) I felt really bad, but the fever went down quickly with OTC medication they gave me. My blood tests came back normal -- not sure what they tested for, but I guess it was cell counts? I vomited a few times, got an IV and was sent home with a vague diagnosis of probably just gastroenteritis.

Yesterday, in my pregnancy book, I came across the symptoms for listeriosis -- which sound identical to the symptoms I had. Listeriosis is like, my worst fear for the baby. I'm worried the doctor missed it because he's not used to dealing with pregnant women. I don't think I've eaten anything in particular that was banned, but listeria is weird in that it can really strike any kind of food. (A major outbreak recently was in cantaloupe!) I've been trying to get my doctor/midwife on the phone but can't, and I'm going crazy about this.

Not sure how you can help me, but if you have any thoughts on what I should do next -- or if it's to late to test for it since it happened several weeks ago -- I'd be grateful. I'm in the UK if that matters. I'm going pretty crazy!

posted by EtTuHealy to Health & Fitness (10 answers total)

here are lots of viruses and several bacteria that produce that gastroenteritis symptoms. In people who are made ill by Listeria, the symptoms are generlly very serious. It's an all-or-nothing sort of thing for most people exposed. I can't tell you you didn't have listeriosis, but I can assure you that even a doc-in-a-box has a great deal of experience with foodborne illness in every kind of person. Do you have any reason to think you were exposed to Listeria, like eating unpasteurized milk, soft cheese, cold-cured smoked fish, or uncooked cured meats? Or is this wholly based on your symptoms?
posted by gingerest at 4:17 AM on September 22, 2015 [2 favorites]

Does it make you feel better to know that there are usually less than 200 cases of listeriosis in the UK each year? It's really very, very unlikely that you have listeriosis. It's much rarer than it seems when you are worried about it. There are lots of much more common illnesses that cause the same symptoms you're describing. And if anything, you're at lower risk of contracting listeriosis because you've been avoiding all these foods.
posted by mskyle at 4:20 AM on September 22, 2015 [2 favorites]

Oh honey, it really so likely was just gastro. I mean, so many people get that all the time and listeria is so unlikely. It's really rough because in pregnancy it seems like everything is suddenly on the Do Not Eat list. The fact that it was 2 weeks ago is even more reassuring cause if there was an outbreak of something you'd eaten it would be in the news. But gastro? It's everywhere. If you came in contact with anyone with little kids that just started preschool or school (very likely this time of year), those are full of it and it just slays adults while the little poppets have a day of feeling poorly. Books of symptoms are awful, what you described having is like every bug Ive ever had.

Speak to your doc/midwife if it will make reassure you but is there something nice you can treat yourself with today to help you keep our mind off it? A nice chat with someone you haven't caught up with in awhile? I want to send internet hugs to you if you want them.
posted by kitten magic at 4:42 AM on September 22, 2015 [5 favorites]

Have you eaten anything that was recently recalled? Because, yes, listeria can be in pretty much anything that's uncooked but it doesn't mean it was in anything you ate. You mention cantaloupe, did you eat any? And even if you had eaten cantaloupe, was it cantaloupe from the producer/distributor that was affected? It's easy to panic at the word "outbreak" but an outbreak of listeria still means dozens of cases confined to people who had eaten a very specific product at a very specific time.

Call your midwife, tell her you're concerned, ask if there's anything they can test to give you peace of mind. Pregnancy is a mindfuck of anxiety as it is!

And I sympathize, I really do. I'm 16 weeks pregnant and there's an outbreak of listeria in restaurant grade soft cheese products which includes my state, so I've been wrecking my brain trying to figure out if I've had anything that could possibly fall under that category (queso in tacos? salads? sandwiches?) even though I feel perfectly fine and I know the odds are good that I haven't even come anywhere near any.
posted by lydhre at 5:13 AM on September 22, 2015

It's been two weeks with no symptoms? Chances are you are alright and your baby is alright.

1. Call the clinic and find out if they tested for listeriosis.
2. Make an appointment with your doctor. They probably can't tell you anything conclusive over the phone anyway.
3. If you feel sick, go back to the clinic.
4. Have a cuppa and a long nap.
posted by zennie at 5:55 AM on September 22, 2015

Hey, i'm a first time mom, 19 weeks pregnant, and relatively anxious and paranoid right now too . Something that helped ease my troubled mind was getting a home doppler to listen to the baby's heartbeat. We use Womb Music and have had great success with it.

Note - that it can take a little while to find the heart beat, but it comes in loud and clear once you have it. Listening to the baby's heartbeat and knowing that he or she is ok always helps me calm me down after extreme round ligament pain, or when i had terrible GI distress and was worried about losing the baby.

So deep breaths, and maybe look into getting a home doppler to help ease your mind whenever you're worried.
posted by Suffocating Kitty at 8:29 AM on September 22, 2015

Don't worry about it. There's so much fear in pregnancy but if you look at the facts and stats, there's probably very little chance you can hurt your baby. Every pregnant lady is scared of everything, but your baby is probably fine and not affected.
posted by Piedmont_Americana at 8:48 AM on September 22, 2015 [3 favorites]

You are fine. Your baby is fine. Stop reading the pregnancy books and don't search for things online. You can control your stress level, which can harm you and baby, but you can't control much else. Deal with what is in your control. Go for a walk, eat some fruit, and then sit in front of the television with a chocolate cake perched on your ever growing tummy and relax for a few hours. It's the hormones making you crazy. The only way to fight the crazy is with chocolate. Eat more chocolate. It will be okay.

I too had worries and fears during pregnancy. It's normal. Healthy pregnancies with very little drama are also normal. Listeria poisoning your baby is very rare. Focus on normal. I've had three healthy babies. I experienced an electrical shock during the first pregnancy (he's a little high strung but otherwise good) and extreme stress with the second one (she has an anxiety disorder now). It all works out okay. It really does. Go eat some cake.
posted by myselfasme at 9:39 AM on September 22, 2015 [1 favorite]

Best answer: If it helps from our experience listeria during pregnancy resulted in a raging high fever and straight-to-the-ER symptoms for my wife, nothing close to mildly flu-like. It was obvious that something was very, very wrong.

We spent a lot of hours discussing listeria and pregnancy with many specialists over the next three weeks. We heard from a couple of sources that they believed for mild cases your body fights it off it is just like if you got the flu; aches, a bit of a temperature for a couple of days and then mother and baby are just fine, no one even realizes what happened and no long-term impacts.

After all the drama we now have a smart, healthy boy who's blood tests at the time showed no sign of his mom's listeria, the placenta did it's thing. Other than some passing fame in local midwifery circles there were no lasting effects. Your blood test came back negative and that is how they determined it was listeria in our case. This is all purely anecdotal but you can probably relax a little.
posted by N-stoff at 10:29 AM on September 22, 2015 [5 favorites]

Response by poster: Thank you so much everyone for your comments and reassurance! I favorited N-stoff only because of the specificity of the personal experience. I talked to my midwife, which was somewhat reassuring, and I'm trying to take it easy now. Thanks again!
posted by EtTuHealy at 3:17 AM on September 23, 2015 [2 favorites]