I used bug spray while pregnant. Should I worry?

Take a breath. Spraying a cockroach that turned up while you were home alone is what nearly anyone would do. The useful next step is not searching for worst cases online. It is telling your midwife, doctor or pharmacist what you used, so they can advise on your situation, and keeping your exposure low from here. Both are simple.

If you feel unwell, or anything about the baby worries you: contact your midwife or doctor today. In an emergency, call the emergency number or poison centre where you live, and have the can or its label with you.

What to tell your midwife or doctor

• The product. The name, or a photo of the label showing the active ingredients.
• How much and how long. One short burst or several long ones.
• Where. A small room or a big one, windows shut or open, how close it was to your face.
• How far along you are, and whether you have felt unwell since.

That is what they need to give advice that fits you. A pharmacist can also read a label with you. Nobody online can do that for your pregnancy, and that includes us. Read the label yourself too: most have a section on what to do after contact or breathing it in.

Right now: lower the exposure

1. Air the room. Open the windows and wait somewhere else while it clears.
2. Wash your hands and any skin the spray touched, with soap and water. Change your clothes if they got sprayed.
3. Wipe the surfaces you eat from or prepare food on in that room. Throw away uncovered food that was in the spray.
4. Put the can away, out of reach, so the next cockroach does not get the same treatment by reflex.

For the rest of your pregnancy

• Let someone else handle treatments. A partner, a friend, the landlord or a pest company. Be out of the home while they do it, and come back when the label or the technician says.
• Choose enclosed baits over sprays. Bait stations and gel bait stay where they are put. A spray puts product into the air you breathe. For cockroaches, bait is the main tool anyway. The German cockroach guide has the plan.
• Count with monitor traps. They have no poison, and they show whether the bait is working.
• Skip foggers. They fill the room and still miss the cockroaches in the walls. See do cockroach foggers work.
• Read every label before it comes into the house. If a label has advice for pregnant people, it wins over anything you read here.
• If you hire a pro, tell them you are pregnant and ask for the product names and labels before the visit, so your midwife or doctor can see them.

Why the spray did not solve it anyway

A spray kills the cockroach it hits. It does nothing for any that are hiding behind the cooker or under the sink. A big one at night is often a visitor from outside or the drains, which is a different problem from small ones breeding indoors. Big dark cockroach at night and I saw one cockroach help you work out which you have.

Next time one runs at you, a shoe or a wad of kitchen roll does the job with nothing in the air. Then wash your hands.

Getting help with the cockroaches

If you rent, tell your landlord in writing, with the date and what you saw. Say you are pregnant and ask for a treatment that uses bait rather than spraying. If nothing happens, when the landlord will not deal with pests covers who to contact next.

Planning ahead for the baby’s arrival? Cockroach treatment with a baby in the house goes room by room. Our safety page explains why the label always comes first.