Monday, October 10, 2011

Dangers lurking everywhere

I'm trying to stay away from What to Expect When You're Expecting since it's such a fear-mongering book, but even reading more "neutral" pregnancy books makes doing just about anything absolutely terrifying.

I'm usually pretty laid back about these things, but now I'm deathly afraid of:
-accidentally ingesting too much caffeine
-the apparent dangers of (some) artificial sweeteners and other food processing
-using a cleaning supply (not that I clean that much anyway...) that could damage the baby through its fumes or through its contact with my skin
-not cleaning enough (!) and accidentally getting toxoplasmosis from scattered kitty litter or from the remains of our raw cat food
-not heating my lunch meat enough to kill any possible listeria that might be lingering (I know it needs to be heated to steaming, but for how long? and how can I be sure it was steaming enough?)
-not washing my fruits/veggies enough to get rid of the small chance of listeria (anyone else bothered by the cantaloupe and spinach and sprouts recalls recently? I never would have been, except now that I'm pregnant I've apparently gone crazy.)
-accidentally eating cheese that hasn't been pasteurized (does anyone know if I can eat unpasteurized cheese as long as it's cooked? They had cooked queso at Costco the other day, but I didn't sample it because I didn't know if it was pasteurized, even though it was steaming hot.)

-eating too much fish and getting mercury poisoning (seriously, there are all sorts of rules about how much is okay per day/week/month depending on the type of fish and where it was caught - it's enough to make me avoid fish altogether, except...)
-not eating enough fish so I'm short on omega-3s (because the supplements can only do so much and I apparently need the real thing too)

And now last night I read that wireless signals may disrupt development so I should be careful to keep my cell phone away from my abdomen and we should turn off our wireless router at night?!?

Ugh. I'm ready to go back to blissful ignorance, please.


Addendum
Less than two hours later, and I thought of a few more fears:
-  non-stick pans (due to possible links to autism/PDDs)
-  heating frozen lunches in their plastic containers (due to concerns about possible endocrine disruption)

1 comment:

Sara said...

This is kinda funny. I am sad you are extra stressed about crazy things but its nuts what we are told we can and cannot eat! I'm sure you will be fine. There have been a million women before you and after you that will do all those things "wrong" and will still end up with a prefect bundle of joy. Enjoy this time!