Pregnant nurse: scared of problems with baby from working as a nurse.

[Nursing2102]

Hi all. I'm 19 weeks pregnant and work as a float nurse on telemetry units. Recently I have become so paranoid about being exposed to sick patients at work that I have a fear of acquiring birth defects from exposure to random things. As a nurse I already know what I can and cannot be around in the hospital setting, but again I'm paranoid because I feel like sometimes patients aren't diagnosed right away or sometimes you may not even know what they have. I need some reassurance because it's starting to cause too much stress on me. Thanks for any words of advice

[Just.Blessed.RN, BSN, RN]

For the most part, I believe that the nurse manager should not assign certain patients to pregnant nurses...and paying more attention to keeping your hands clean should prevent problems. But that is a major reason why I switched from Med/Surg to psych as my husband and I try to get pregnant! Hopefully the work is a little less physically demanding and I can work up until delivery!!