Peta Flores, a 23-year-old resident of San Diego, Calif. who is seven months pregnant, was recently using bleach to disinfect her kitchen counters. "I turned away for a moment and my 15-month-old son, Jackson, tried to reach up to the counter to grab the bleach. In my rush to save him, I ended up spilling the bleach all over myself," Flores says. After nudging her son to safe territory, Flores stripped off her clothes, right there in the kitchen, and immediately noticed that the skin on her thigh was reddened from contact with the bleach.

"I was really concerned that the bleach would be absorbed through my skin and somehow affect the baby," Flores says. "I called my doctor's office and asked them about it. Luckily, they told me that I had no reason to be concerned."

Certainly pregnant women need to take precautions when presented with situations and products routinely found in every household. Using proper procedures, expectant moms can minimize or eliminate exposing themselves and their unborn children to dangers, the effects of which are sometimes unknown or undocumented.

Just what are the general rules as far as household hazards are concerned? "I think the overall view is that little information is available about most household solvents and so prolonged (for example) occupational exposure is probably best avoided, but intermittent, protected exposure is probably OK," according to Thomas R. Moore, MD, professor and chairman of the Department of Reproductive Medicine with the School of Medicine at University of California San Diego (UCSD).

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