Cats & Expecting: The Mother of All Myths

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The biggest old wives’ tales about cats are probably all gathered together under the heading of “Cats and Pregnancy.”

Not the cat’s pregnancy. Their human’s.

Click on picture for larger, readable size.

It takes two doctors (Dr. T. Berry Brazelton and Dr. Joshua Sparrow) to give this much wrong-headed advice to pregnant cat owners. Dr. Brazelton is a respected pediatrician, and their books on raising toddlers are popular. I can only conclude this indicates some deep seated anti-cat prejudice on somebody’s part.

They certainly made sure people don’t have to read past the headline to know their take on the subject: Cats are a danger to babies during, after pregnancy. Dear heavens! Babies in danger. Doctors, do tell.

First up, toxoplasmosis. Now, it’s true that women who contract this illness during their pregnancy can pass on the infection to the developing child; that isn’t good. It can lead to serious complications as the child grows; if it is untreated.

However, if the woman has already had toxoplasmosis (and in adults this can be so mild the person doesn’t even know they have had it) the immunity usually lingers in the mother’s body, and this protection is passed on to her child.

How are people exposed to this illness? Cats who eat infected birds or rodents can shed communicable material in their feces; thus the warnings on all the cat litter bags to use gloves or let someone else do the cat litter during pregnancy. But there are many other ways to be exposed to this parasitic illness, such as uncooked meats, unwashed vegetables, or working in contaminated soil.

In this two year Norwegian Study, 10% of pregnant women showed previous exposure in their blood antibodies, and the only infection that resulted in complications for the resulting child was a single, untreated, infection.

So blaming cats seems overblown to me, when vegetables from the farmer’s market or planting a flat of pansies runs the same risks. Cats who have spent their whole lives indoors have less of a chance of picking up this illness than their people who garden.

What does the Center for Disease Control think of cats and pregnant women? Check out their fact page on the subject. They take a much less hysterical approach, especially in this paragraph:

Do I have to give up my cat if I’m pregnant or planning on becoming pregnant?

No. You should follow these helpful tips to reduce your risk of environmental exposure to Toxoplasma.

Gee, the CDC is awfully calm about it. Their recommendations are not that different from Brazelton and Sparrow’s article; precaution is probably a better word to use than danger. That is, unless a writer has another agenda. The real danger is tipped off in the question they use to open the column:

My daughter is pregnant. She lives with three rather large cats that have been the center of her life for many years and are a little spoiled. I’m worried they will be jealous of the new family member and get into the crib with the baby.

Cats may be the issue of the article, but it’s the potential grandmother who has the issues. Spoiled cats are happy cats; happy cats love greeting new family members. I’m sure this isn’t the first time “the cats” have come up between mother and daughter. And now there’s a baby on the way, Grandma has less use for the cats, and wishes to impose those same views on her daughter. Just whose jealousy is at issue here, I wonder?

The mere act of a cat getting into the crib is, of course, fraught with danger. The Drs. agree; here’s how they address her worries:

You are right to be concerned about your daughter’s big cats and her new baby for other reasons as well. Cats lovers may be upset with us for saying so, but because cats attach themselves to their human caregivers, they have been known to be jealous of new babies as if the new arrivals were siblings!

I find something very strange in this statement; at least one of these doctors is a pediatrician, and can’t be completely unacquainted with the concept of sibling jealousy. If siblings are humans, they are taught how to act towards the baby. Dogs, though not mentioned, are certainly attached to their human caregivers, and are as capable of jealousy; and they can be taught how to act towards the baby.

But cats, while being given credit for attachment, apparently only use this power for evil. Because the next sentence is:

Some cats will seek out a baby’s mouth or nose and lie on them to smother the child.

I had to read that sentence twice to make sure they had actually said that. Did two scientists actually say that? And what are they basing this extraordinary statement on? Are there really instances of cats deliberately smothering babies?

According to this Snopes article, a coroner’s jury in 1791 brought forth such a verdict. And they also burned witches, so we probably shouldn’t take them too seriously on this matter.

What about the December 2000 death of a six week old infant? The mother claimed she found the cat sleeping on the baby’s head. But an autopsy indicated it was Sudden Infant Death Syndrome. Not the cat.

So the answer, according to our best scholarship, is no, cats don’t deliberately smother babies. There might be instances of cats accidentally smothering babies, somehow, but so can bedding and pillows and blankets. Small infants should always be monitored and their cribs cleared of such items they are too small to free themselves from. In fact, an exhaustive CDC study, dissected here, takes issue with the press report about the study, but does detail the many causes of smothering cases in infants.

And cats are not mentioned once.

more animals

I am happy to report their next column on the subject was about the barrage of mail they got, offering sensible suggestions about merging cats with babies. Read the PDF here. I can sum it up as follows: If they were backpedaling any faster, the chain would come off their bicycle.

A big Way of Cats thank you to the reader who brought this to my attention, and supplied the articles, which I otherwise would not have seen. This is exactly the kind of hysterical over-reaction that puts perfectly lovely cats into shelters when a baby is coming.

It’s not only misinformed, it’s a terrible way to welcome new life. What kind of dynamic is this communicating? Hello, darling child. To welcome you into the world I banished someone else who loved and trusted me.

That’s one heck of an introduction to the family.

Jealousy anywhere in the family should be dealt with before the baby comes, and then it’s not a problem. See my post, Do cats get jealous?

I touched on some of these myths with a previous post, Cats and Small Children.

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