I'm not even sure I would trust what your doctor tells you. I doubt most of them would know anything more about reptiles other than basic pathogens and what they see on the news. For what it's worth, I had reptiles all through my wife's pregnancy, and my daughter has been exposed to them since she was quite small. And no one has ever gotten anything or become sick in any way because of them, and the kid is 15 now. Basic proper hygiene should be all you need. I got a lot of the same BS from family members at that time, and I was keeping burms to boot. Actually lost it at one point and asked one of the in-laws if they thought I was planning on keeping the crib in the (explicative) cage with the 12' snake or something. Didn't help my popularity with her family any but it cut off the stupidity pretty well.