Listeria symptoms baby

Listeria Infections (for Parents) - Nemours KidsHealth

What Are

Listeria infections — known as listeriosis — are a rare type of food poisoning. They can happen when someone eats a food contaminated by a type of bacterium.

Most cases affect pregnant women in their last trimester, newborns, older adults, and people whose immune system is weakened by diseases such as cancer or HIV.

What Are the Signs & Symptoms of

Listeria (liss-TEER-ee-uh) infections can cause symptoms such as:

• fever
• muscle aches
• vomiting or diarrhea
• stiff neck
• confusion
• weakness

Pregnant women with an infection may only have mild flu-like symptoms, like muscle aches, but are at risk for premature delivery and other serious complications to their fetus.

How Do People Get

Listeria infections are caused by Listeria monocytogenes bacteria, which can spread through soil and water.

People can ingest the bacteria by eating foods such as deli meats and cold cuts, soft-ripened cheese, undercooked chicken, uncooked hot dogs, shellfish, and unpasteurized (raw) milk or dairy products made from raw milk.

Are

Listeriosis doesn't pass from person to person. People become infected by ingesting contaminated food or fluids. However, a pregnant woman can pass the infection to her unborn baby.

How Is Listeriosis Diagnosed?

Doctors usually diagnose Listeria infections with a lab test called a bacterial culture, done on a sample of a body fluid, such as blood, spinal fluid, or the placenta.

The earlier listeriosis is detected and treated, the better, because it can cause a serious and life-threatening infection.

How Is Listeriosis Treated?

Healthy kids, teens, and adults with a Listeria infection typically don't need treatment. Symptoms usually go away within a few weeks.

Pregnant women and newborns with listeriosis will receive antibiotics in the hospital through an intravenous catheter (IV) into a vein. Treatment lasts for about 10 days, but that can vary depending on the body's ability to fight off the infection.

Children whose immune systems are compromised by illness or infection, such as cancer or HIV, are more likely to develop severe listeriosis infections and may need further treatment.

What Problems Can Happen?

Some people with severe Listeria infections — especially those with weakened immunity and people over age 65 — can develop gastroenteritis (vomiting and diarrhea, also called the "stomach flu"), bacteremia (a bacterial infection in the blood), sepsis (a dangerous full-body response to bacteremia), meningitis, pneumonia, osteomyelitis (infection in a bone), and endocarditis (inflammation and infection of the heart's lining).

Can

Particularly if you are pregnant or in one of the other high-risk groups, avoiding certain foods and drinks can reduce your risk of getting this infection.

Other tips to help protect your family from listeriosis (and other foodborne illnesses):

• Always cook food (especially meat and eggs) well to the proper internal temperature.
• Wash fruits and vegetables well before eating.
• Only drink pasteurized milk, and make sure that milk is refrigerated at the appropriate temperature, which is below 40°F (4°C).
• Avoid foods made from unpasteurized milk.
• If you're in a high-risk group, avoid soft cheeses such as feta, Brie, Camembert, blue-veined cheeses, and Mexican-style cheeses (like queso fresco).
• Reheat precooked, prepackaged foods — such as deli meats or hot dogs — to steaming hot temperatures, especially if you're pregnant.
• Carefully wash hands and utensils after handling raw foods.

When Should I Call the Doctor?

Call your doctor immediately if your child develops fast or labored breathing, a fever, loss of appetite, vomiting, dehydration, a high-pitched cry, excessive sleepiness, or irritability. If your child has listeriosis, the doctor can immediately start treatment.

Reviewed by: Rebecca L. Gill, MD

Date reviewed: November 2017

Listeriosis in Infants, Children & Pregnant People

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Listeriosis is a serious infection caused by a bacteria called Listeria monocytogenes. About 1,600 people get listeriosis each year, usually after eating contaminated food.

Pregnant people, newborns and children with weakened immune systems and adults over age 65 years are at higher risk if they get infected. Pregnant people can spread the bacteria across the placenta and infect the fetus. If a person becomes infected early in pregnancy, they are at high risk of miscarriage. Late in pregnancy, the infection can cause stillbirth or, at times, serious illness or death in the newborn shortly after delivery. Listeriosis rarely causes serious problems for healthy children.

L monocytogenes bacteria are found in the environment. Like other viruses, parasites and bacteria, Listeria can contaminate food and cause food poisoning.
Some foods that get contaminated with Listeria more often include: soft cheeses (eg, feta, Brie, Camembert), unpasteurized milk, processed meat (eg, hot dogs, deli meat, pâté), undercooked poultry and unwashed raw vegetables.

Listeriosis outbreak linked to ice cream

Listeria symptoms can include fever and diarrhea. People rarely become seriously ill; most recover on their own without medical care. Symptoms usually begin within 24 hours after eating the contaminated food and can last two to three days.

Severe illness is less common and develops one to four weeks after eating contaminated food, sometimes later. Serious childhood cases of listeriosis can lead to meningitis. Listeriosis can be serious for pregnant people and cause pregnancy loss or premature birth. In pregnant people, symptoms may include fever, fatigue, muscle aches and intestinal problems, or they may have no symptoms of infection. Infections also can be serious or deadly for infants. Symptoms of listeriosis in an infant may include:

• Listlessness (sleepy, drowsy, sluggish)
• Vomiting
• Loss of appetite
• Yellow color of the skin and eyes (jaundice)
• Skin rash
• Breathing problems

Listeriosis is detected through laboratory testing of blood, urine and cerebrospinal (from the brain and spine) fluid. If your pediatrician suspects that your newborn may have listeriosis, the placenta or amniotic fluid can be tested for the germ.

When listeriosis is diagnosed in a pregnant person, treatment of the infection can prevent the spread of infection to the fetus or newborn. Antibacterial medication also can be used to treat L monocytogenes infections in infants.

How to prevent listeriosis
Those at increased risk should follow food safety steps to avoid infection:

• Eat or serve only thoroughly cooked food from animal sources.
• Check the label of dairy products and do not eat the food unless the label says it is pasteurized. Avoid raw (unpasteurized) milk and foods made from it (for example, unpasteurized soft cheeses like feta, brie and queso fresco).
• Wash raw vegetables.
• Store ready-to-eat foods at 40°F or lower.
• Keep uncooked meats separate from vegetables.
  
• Wash your hands, knives and cutting boards after they have touched uncooked foods.
• Thoroughly cook leftover foods and ready-to-eat foods such as hot dogs until they are steaming hot.
• Stay away from foods from delis such as prepared salads, meats or cheeses, or heat these foods until steaming before eating.
  

Finally, keep in mind that pasteurizing food will kill Listeria. But pasteurized foods can still be contaminated with the badteria if they are exposed to unclean surfaces or equipment.

10 Simple Steps to Prevent Infections During Pregnancy
Food Safety Booklet (Food and Drug Administration)

Last Updated

7/6/2022

Source

American Academy of Pediatrics (Copyright © 2022)

The information contained on this Web site should not be used as a substitute for the medical care and advice of your pediatrician. There may be variations in treatment that your pediatrician may recommend based on individual facts and circumstances.

Listeriosis: Causes, Symptoms, Treatment | doc.ua

Listeriosis is a disease that begins when Listeria monocytogenes enters the body. The disease is quite serious - in 30% of cases, listeriosis is fatal, so it is very important to know how to protect yourself from it. Listeriosis can develop in a few days or two months.

Attention!

Here you can choose a doctor who treats Listeriosis If you are not sure about the diagnosis, make an appointment with a general practitioner or general practitioner to clarify the diagnosis.

Causes

Usually, the listeriosis pathogen enters the body along with contaminated foods, as a result of which it enters the spleen, liver, lungs, lymph nodes and nervous system through the blood or lymphatic vessels. This is how foci of necrosis appear in the body, which are called listeriomas. Listeriosis in humans develops depending on the strength of the immune system, which is why severe brain damage can be observed mainly only in infants and immunocompromised patients.

Listeriosis can be contracted:

• through poorly cooked meat or root crops. The danger is fraught with soft cheeses and meat products that are in vacuum packaging;
• while caring for a patient with listeriosis;
• by inhaling dust in rooms where skins are dressed or animal wool is processed;
• due to an insect bite, more often a tick;
• sexually;
• due to transplantation of internal organs, mainly kidneys.

Workers in poultry farms and farms are most at risk of contracting this disease, so you should be very careful about safety in such work.

Symptoms

As you know, the sooner the disease is detected, the easier it is to cure the patient. And therefore, in order to successfully cure listeriosis, the symptoms should be known now: this will help to identify the disease faster.

Analysis for listeriosis can reveal four forms of the disease: glandular (which, in turn, has anginal-glandular and oculo-glandular variants), gastroenteric, nervous and septic.

Glandular:

• Anginal:
  • high temperature;
  • general intoxication of the body;
  • signs characteristic of angina;
  • enlargement of the spleen and liver.
• Eye variant:
  • narrowing of the slits of the eyes;
  • blurred vision;
  • Conjunctivitis: unilateral purulent, with burning sensations in the eyes, redness of the eyes and copious flow of tears.

Gastroenteric:

• very rapid temperature increase, up to 40 degrees;
• headache;
• severe chills;
• pain in joints and muscle tissue;
• vomiting and nausea, cramping abdominal pain, loose stools;
• impurities of blood and mucus in the feces.

This form of the disease is also characterized by the fact that the development of infectious-toxic shock is possible.

Nervous:

• high temperature;
• severe headache (increasing), loss of consciousness;
• muscle spasms.

Listeriosis in pregnant women is frightening with this particular form, because it is very typical for newborns, to whom the disease can be transmitted from their mother. Moreover, the fetus can become infected with this disease both during gestation and during childbirth. Infection of the fetus threatens many: this is a spontaneous abortion, and the birth of a dead child, and the birth of a child who will have any malformations. With all this, congenital listeriosis threatens with a high risk of death and is considered one of the most severe options for the development of an infectious disease.

However, the clinical manifestations of the congenital disease are not specific. It can be a high fever or a change in the pulse, impaired appetite (the child refuses to feed), vomiting, "cyanosis" of the skin, nodular rash (tubercles), jaundice, meningitis, general lethargy and lethargy.

Septic:

• frequent chills;
• changes in body temperature;
• rash - large elements in the area of ​​the joints, on the face in the form of a butterfly;
• frequent pneumonia, jaundice and hepatitis.

Listeriosis is insidious, the diagnosis of the septic form is the most difficult, since in this form the disease develops extremely slowly. The septic form can begin with the fact that it will cut in the eyes and tickle in the throat. Also, this form is most common in newborns and people with weakened immune systems.

Chronic

Chronic disease is also possible. In this case, the pathogen can be in the body for a very long time and will not show any clinical symptoms. Only occasionally can listeriosis exacerbate: mild flu-like illnesses or chronic pyelitis in an exacerbated form.

Diagnosis

Symptoms of listeriosis are very similar to those of many other diseases. It is for this reason that listeriosis is usually diagnosed through laboratory diagnostics. There is a bacteriological method: it is aimed at isolating Listeria from the blood, a smear of the vagina, tonsils is taken.

Polymerase chain reaction or PCR is also performed. It is aimed at detecting sections of the DNA of the causative agent of the disease. Serological diagnostics is carried out to determine the immunoglobulin in human serum.

Treatment

Listeriosis is a serious disease and is often treated with hospitalization, although patients with glandular disease are treated on an outpatient basis. Listeriosis is treated with antibiotics. If there is severe intoxication, as well as dehydration, then during inpatient treatment, the patient is administered saline solutions intravenously. Symptomatic therapy is also carried out, for example, a patient with listeriosis with an ocular-glandular variant of the glandular form needs the treatment of conjunctivitis.

Never self-medicate listeriosis. It is imperative to contact the infectious disease doctor so that he clarifies the origin of the disease in this particular case and selects the appropriate therapy for this particular case.

Prevention

If you want to drink milk or eat meat, make sure that these products are subjected to heat treatment without fail. Be sure to follow the rules of hygiene and sanitation if you work in enterprises where animal carcasses are processed, as well as if you work in poultry farms or meat processing plants.

Careful sanitary control is also required, aimed at products that enter the store shelves.

Complications

This disease brings a number of consequences and complications to the unfortunate owner.

Since listeriomas form in the tissues of the central nervous system, they can lead to the development of meningitis, as well as encephalitis and even meningoencephalitis.

If a patient has a nervous form of listeriosis, this threatens him with the development of hydrocephalus, as well as dementia, and the septic form may result in the development of an infectious-toxic shock for the patient. In this case, the patient's condition will be very serious, due to the action of toxins on the body, it may even end in a coma.

Respiratory failure and asymptomatic carriers are also possible.

4 main symptoms of listeriosis and how to avoid it

Listeriosis is a foodborne bacterial disease that can lead to devastating consequences for pregnant women and people with weakened immune systems. Listeria is most commonly found in improperly processed and cooked meats and unpasteurized dairy products.

Healthy people rarely experience this infection, but it can be fatal for newborns or unborn babies. Immunocompromised individuals are also at higher risk of life-threatening complications. That is why, at the first suspicion, it is necessary to take an analysis for listeriosis. Timely treatment helps prevent or mitigate the development of complications.

The peculiarity of this bacterium is the ability to survive and develop in chilled and even frozen foods. For this reason, people who are at higher risk of infection should avoid foods that may contain this bacterium.

If you develop this infection, you may experience the following symptoms:

1. Fever,
2. Muscle pain,
3. Nausea,
4. Diarrhea.

Symptoms of listeriosis may appear several days after eating contaminated food. However, for some, a month or even more passes before the first signs of the disease appear.

If Listeria spreads to the nervous system, the patient may experience additional symptoms, including:

• Headaches,
• Hardening of the neck muscles,
• Confusion in the mind,
• Loss of balance,
• Seizures.

How does listeriosis manifest during pregnancy and newborns?

Compared to other healthy adults, pregnant women are more susceptible to this infection. In most pregnant women, the bacterium causes only mild symptoms. But the consequences for the child can be dire. The baby may die unexpectedly or face a life-threatening infection during the first days after birth. Sometimes miscarriages happen.

As with adults, listeriosis symptoms in newborns may be mild. They include:

• Weak desire to eat,
• Irritability,
• Fever,
• Vomiting.

Listeriosis in people with weakened immunity:

This category of people includes:

• Persons over 60 years old,
• AIDS -
• people who are taking a chemotherapy,
• People with kidney disease or diabetes,
• People taking large doses of prednisone or certain drugs for rheumatoid arthritis,
• People taking drugs after organ transplants (immunosuppressants).

Listeria can be found in soil, water, or animal feces. Most often, people become infected after eating:

• Contaminated meat0018
• Raw vegetables that have been contaminated from soil or manure used as fertilizer.

When to run to the doctor?

If you've been eating foods that have since been taken off the market because of Listeria, listen to your body. If the four main symptoms appear, immediately go to the doctor. The same goes for eating foods that may have been contaminated: unpasteurized milk, an undercooked hot dog, or deli meats. If after using them symptoms of listeriosis appear, go get tested.

If you have additional symptoms that affect the nervous system, call an ambulance. These symptoms may indicate the development of one of the life-threatening complications - bacterial meningitis.

In most cases, this infection is so mild that patients may not notice anything. But this does not negate the fact that this disease can lead to life-threatening complications. These include:

• Blood poisoning (septicemia),
• Inflammation of the membranes and fluid that surrounds the brain (meningitis),
• Miscarriage in early pregnancy (in 20% of cases),
• The development of a deadly infection in a child during the first days after birth (even if the infection was very mild in the mother).

The most effective way to detect this infection is through a blood test to determine the DNA of the bacterium. By the way, if you live in Kyiv, you can take this test at our medical center in Troyeschina.

In some cases, additional research methods are required - analysis of urine or cerebrospinal fluid.

Treatment for listeriosis varies depending on the severity of the symptoms. Most people with a mild infection do not need to be treated, but should be monitored by a doctor. In severe cases, antibiotics are prescribed.

Listeriosis during pregnancy must be treated very quickly. The main goal is to prevent the transmission of infection from mother to child. If the baby was born with this infection, he may be prescribed a combination of several antibiotics.

Precautions for people at risk

Recall that this group includes pregnant women and immunocompromised people. In their case, it is necessary to apply additional preventive measures with the following types of products:

• Unpasteurized milk - cut it out completely.
• Soft cheeses. Avoid soft cheeses like feta, brie, camembert and blue cheese unless the label says the cheese was made with pasteurized milk.
• Hot dogs and deli meats. Eat them only if they have been thoroughly cooked under high temperature (until steam appears). Wash your hands thoroughly after preparing hot dogs and charcuterie.

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