Listeriosis is caused by Listeria monocytogenes and is a pretty common illness that you get, usually from food. In most healthy people your body just fights off the infection and you never even know you had it, or you have some diarrhea for a bit and then get better quickly. I knew this, so thought, it was silly to get so worked up about it with pregnancy. What I didn't know was that pregnant women are 20 times more likely to become infected and develop a severe illness of listeriosis. That makes a big difference! Other high risk groups are the elderly, persons with cancer, diabetes, alcoholism, kidney disease, AIDS, or those taking corticosteroid therapy. (Nice to know that being pregnant puts you in the same category as such severe illnesses!) Another reason that is it of concern when being pregnant is that the illness tends to go where ever there is a large amount of blood supply... which when you are pregnant, is the uterus, and then the baby.

Avoid listeriosis by:
1) Avoid hot dogs, luncheon meats, deli meats, unless they are reheated until steaming hot.
2) Wash hands after handling the above foods.
3) Avoid soft cheeses (feta, Brie, Camembert, Mexican-style cheeses, etc) unless they are made from pasteurized milk or are fully cooked as part of a dish.
4) Watch out for the juice from hot dogs... it can have transmit the illness, so wash up anything that gets the hotdog juice or hot dogs on it.

If you are not convinced yet that you should really put forth the effort to avoid getting Listeriosis, let's talk about the consequences that can happen if you contract this illness while pregnant. First you my have a mild flu-like illness with headache, nausea and fever. Then it can be followed by an infection in the placenta, loosing the baby, or a brain infection in the baby. Not good.

You can read more about Listeriosis at, the Center for Disease Control.