Is gardening safe during pregnancy?

What does the evidence say about gardening during pregnancy?

1. Toxoplasma parasite eggs can live in cat feces or stay buried in soil for up to 18 months, and people can become infected by handling contaminated soil. 1
2. Wearing gloves when gardening or handling soil or sand, and washing hands with soap and water afterward, are the specific precautions recommended to lower toxoplasmosis exposure during pregnancy. 2
3. In a European multicenter case-control study, contact with soil was linked to about double the odds of toxoplasma infection in pregnancy, while contact with cats themselves, including cleaning a litter tray, showed no significant association. 3
4. In that same study, soil contact was estimated to account for 6% to 17% of toxoplasma infections in pregnancy depending on the region, because infective parasite eggs spread through contaminated soil and water rather than through direct contact with cats. 3
5. How a congenital toxoplasmosis infection turns out depends on timing: the parasite passes to the baby more often later in pregnancy, but the resulting illness tends to be more severe when infection happens earlier, and most infected newborns look well at birth even when infected. 4

Is gardening safe in each trimester?

• First trimester. First-trimester infection is the least likely to pass to the baby, but when it does, the effects tend to be the most severe. This is the trimester to be most consistent about gloves and hand-washing, not the one to skip gardening in.
• Second trimester. Soil contact keeps carrying the same risk all pregnancy. Keep the same gloves-and-handwashing routine, and cover any sandbox or garden bed a neighborhood cat could use as a litter box between sessions.
• Third trimester. Transmission to the baby becomes more likely later in pregnancy even though the resulting illness tends to be milder. The precautions don't change: gloves for soil contact, thorough hand-washing, and calling your provider about any flu-like illness with swollen glands.