Get rid of this "friend", even suggesting this makes her a mega AH

Ugh. These people are the reason cat rescuers are usually so swamped -- the vast majority of people who call themselves "animal lovers" literally think cats are accessories. You show them off, you brag about them, then you decide to clean your house and the cats go with the rest of the furniture and s**t that you get rid of because they "don't match the aesthetic" or something. In short, people like this are the reason I hate people.

Get rid of the friend. Verbal abuse and workplace bullying can't be good for a pregnancy. My other recommendations: stand up for oneself (such as explaining why it's not dangerous so that bullies can't say they didn't know), document the bullying (dates, who said what, etc.), then make a complaint if they persist.

Can this stupid myth just f*****g die already? My friend just spent her whole pregnancy in a house with 5 cats and her son is perfectly healthy.

I've found that some people have a zealous hatred for cats, but dote on dogs.

Legitimately asking: are there any actual cases of this or is it causation: litter boxes and even residual feces on the cats or outside of litter box can potentially cause toxoplasmosis, which could be detrimental to a pregnant woman and the child??? I literally cannot find any case study of it occurring, but assume it must given it’s such a worry. I’d hate for pregnant women to be emphasizing the wrong concerns.

NTA. This so-called danger is vastly exaggerated anyway, and also, there NEVER is a sound reason to "get rid of the cat". You should exclude those idiots from your life altogether, so they can't get a chance of poisoning your child with their so-called thinking.

The "friend" sounds crazy. People has been living around cats for millenias without it being a major problem. She is grosely overreacting, and the "cost" does in no way compensate the "benefit in this case". Crazy as it may be, it can happen from time to time that someone misinterpret the situation, and says something irratic, but that a big part of the office jumped on the band wagon is beyond my comprehension. Are non of those people able to connect the dots and analyse the situations like rational human beings?

This is insane and I don't believe that "all the ladies at work" agree. My husband changed the litter box while I was pregnant just to be safe. My mom had cats through all of her pregnancies. Like she said, since she has always had cats, she's probably already had it anyway. I'm so tired of people being so ignorant about pets and pregnancy. And it seems like most of the time your cat will adopt your baby too, you just have to make sure it doesn't sleep on their face.

That Karen is projecting her germaphobe búllshít onto you. Not to mention she hates cats.

My husband's grandmother & her sister told me I had to get rid of my cat because he would "suck the baby's breath & kill the baby". I told them there is no way I was getting rid of the cat. They would literally sob each time they saw us because I was going to let my cat kill my baby. When our son was born they called CPS and told them we were abusing our son because of the cat. Spoiler alert: our son is now 45 and he was not murdered by my cat.

I took care of our cat's litter throughout my wife's pregnancy because of fear of toxoplasmosis, only to discover that, since my wife had cats growing up, she either had it already or was immune. On the other hand we had to rehome that cat because it actually attacked the baby twice. Nothing happened because we never left the cat alone with the baby. The cat went to a friend who had always loved him, and went on to have a long and good life. Interestingly, they had kids as well, but the cat was OK with those kids. And no, our kid was especially quiet and calm for the few first months of her life, so it wasn't the noise, and our kid was an infant, and could not even turn over, much less crawl after the cat or even grab the cat's tail. Sometimes just happens. Ironically, when the kid was a pre-teen, we ended up getting her an emotional support cat, who worked wonders. The kid's left home and my wife is the cat's emotional support human...

It sounds to me like this friend doesn't have enough of her own business to take care of so she's worrying about other people's.

Where do people in the workplace get off telling calling others names and swearing at them? Or even telling them what they "must" do for their own health? She isn't a friend, she isn't a relative (neither of whom have that right either!) As someone else suggested, I would go to HR and ask if that is acceptable behaviour from another staff member. I've always had cats, (all outdoors cats) had 3 pregnancies/children, cleaned out all the litter boxes with no help from sperm donor (ex), and also didn't know in those days about toxoplasmosis. Nor did anyone else in my generation. We all survived - we all had healthy children, and I don't know of anyone having issues with toxoplasmosis until it became the "in thing" a couple of generations ago.

Get new friends. They are disgusting. Pets are family.

Keep the cats and get rid of the fake friend.

The four cats are family members. The friend expects someone to give up members of the family. There's always automatic litter boxes

First, you can be tested to know if you are immuned or not. In France, it's done as soon as you see your obgyn. Then, if you're not immune, cats are not the more dangerous way to be infected (in fact, you would have to clean the litter bare hands and lick your fingers after that to have one little risk IF your cat has been infected in the last 10 days...). My sister is really allergic to cats so she doesn't have any. She never approached a litter and stayed away from any feline friends. But she cought toxo anyway and her doctor thought it was by eating some vegetables in restaurants with her colleagues.

So sorry you have to work with such stupid and vicious people.

Stupid, the cats aren’t going to hurt the child. Also stupid that a similar article came up recently about the same situation and a dog and the consensus of this community was to get rid of the dog.

I'm more concerned about babies hurting cats, tail grabbing ect

Your co-workers are horrible people. I think there are far more dangerous things in the world than a cat. Jeez.

Mind your business, "friend." You spouted what you think, she's not doing it, now f@ck off. Whatever is between her, the baby, the cats (which ARE family) and the doc. Nosey a*s.