dogs&cats&more

When most people hear about toxoplasmosis and cats, they think of the fear in pregnant women and those with weakened immune systems (HIV or chemo patients, for instance). The truth is, blood studies have been unsuccessful in showing that the household cat can transmit infections to humans at all.

Toxoplasmosis (“Toxo”) is much more commonly acquired eating raw/ undercooked meat, drinking contaminated water, and by gardening in contaminated soil. About half of The U.S. population has positive antibody titers for toxo, therefore their newborns are immune to it. It is in the off chance a pregnant woman gets first infected with it during pregnancy that the infection can spread to the baby, causing a problem. It is much more likely for toxo to pass to the fetus during the third trimester, and this is when it is rare to cause an issue. It would need to be: mother infected when first gets pregnant and transmitted to fetus in first trimester to cause serious birth defects.

If you were TRYING to get toxo from your cat, it would be difficult. It takes 1 to 5 days of exposure to air and correct temperatures before what is spread in the cat feces would be infectious to us. Furthermore, cats only pass this in their feces once in their lives- just after they themselves are exposed to toxo for the first time ever. So…. You somehow know your cat is first exposed and contracts toxo, you leave the litter box untouched almost a week, then you handle the feces and put your hands in your mouth while in your first trimester. Yeah, not likely.

Again, if pregnant, just use common sense. Do not believe those old school doctors that tell you get rid of your cat or ignore it during pregnancy. In fact, that’s a good way of developing behavior problems in your cat when what you want to do during this time is let your cat know she isn’t being replaced. Instead, common sense prevails, use good hygiene tactics and if you’re not cleaning the box out as often as you should, wear gloves while doing so. Not really necessary but better advice than dumping the cat!

Christine, LVT

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