A WOMAN whose son was born badly brain damaged after she ate undercooked food at a summer barbecue 11 years ago, is helping to launch a campaign to make parents more aware of the dangers.

Mrs Sheila Yarrow had no idea when she ate a burger she could be endangering her child, but after contracting toxoplasmosis, her son Tom was born seriously handicapped.

Now, the 37-year-old Edinburgh mother of two, whose husband Richard died from a brain tumour when his son was just eight months old, wants other families to be educated about the dangers of the disease.

Angry at the lack of acknowledgement of the tragic disease's consequences, she has joined the Toxoplasmosis Trust's Daisy Chain Campaign to inform pregnant women.

She said: ''I had been through one healthy pregnancy with Ross, 13, and had never heard of toxoplasmosis.

''When the doctor told me I had contracted it he even suggested I had an abortion.

''I was absolutely horrified.''

Each year, more than 600 unborn babies are affected by, and around 60 women suffer miscarriages or the trauma of a still-born birth, because of the disease - which is more common than listeria or salmonella, which all pregnant women are routinely warned about.

Mrs Yarrow said: ''I feel very angry when I think if someone had warned me about the dangers then I would have had a healthy baby.

''There is a school of thought where doctors don't think it best to worry mums-to-be.

''But I would rather have worried every single day throughout my pregnancy than have been blissfully unaware of the consequences.''

Instead, Mrs Yarrow and her husband lived in fear for five months after the initial diagnosis. They had been told there was a chance Tom would not be affected by the disease.

Mrs Yarrow said: ''There was a 60% chance that the disease would go through the placenta, but I looked upon it as a 40% chance it wouldn't.''

Her son, now 11 and a pupil at the Royal Blind School in Edinburgh, is totally blind, partially deaf and has the mental age of a three-year-old, but can communicate with his mother using signs.

She said: ''Tom loves life and people. He uses his senses to the full. I'm so lucky I didn't lose him.''

Although toxoplasmosis, which is caused by a parasite, is three times more common than rubella or German measles, sufferers may not recognise the symptoms as often they only feel slightly unwell.

Mrs Yarrow said: ''Antibiotics, if taken early enough, can stop the disease spreading so it is vital that people know about it.

''A test would cost about #1 and could easily save hundreds of lives a year.''