A NEWPORT mum hit out at health bosses for causing unnecessary alarm after she and her newborn baby contracted the superbug MRSA.

Clare Williams claims health officials left her in turmoil when they told her she and her two-week-old son, Alistair, were carrying the disease.

She told the Argus how a health visitor delivered the devastating news on Friday, June 3, and left her with no information about the consequences.

She said: "They gave me a leaflet which didn't have any useful information and a telephone number to call on the Monday morning.

"I was left to worry over the whole weekend. I was alarmed because you hear so much about MRSA.

"They didn't tell me whether we were carriers or infected with it." Mrs Williams, of Rowan Way, and her son had been tested for the potentially-fatal bacteria 11 days after undergoing a caesarean operation at the Royal Gwent.

In the end, Mrs Williams found she and Alistair were both carriers of the bug, but were not infected by it.

Now the pair have the option of a course of antibiotics.

But Mrs Williams, said: "If you have this they need to tell you what it means in as precise as terms as possible. With me they were hopeless."

A spokesman for Gwent Healthcare NHS Trust said: "This lady was screened for MRSA purely as a precautionary measure in accordance with our strict infection control guidelines.

"When results are obtained, our policy is that we tell patients and their general practitioners as soon as possible.

"With such knowledge, they can then protect themselves and further reduce the chances of infection if they should need to be re-admitted into hospital for any reason.

"We recognise that public anxiety about infections is at such a level now that patients inevitably worry, even when the likelihood of infection is low and no treatment is required, as in this case."