Should i tell my pregnant friends my DD has chicken pox?

[dekari]

I met up with 3 friends on Wednesday - 2 of whom are pregnant - 22 and 39 weeks. I discovered yesterday, 2 dsys later, that my 10mo dd has chicken pox spots. She hasn't had a fever.

Don't want to stress my friends out and have no idea if they've had the pox before - should i get in touch to tell them?

Yes, I think you should,

Yes.

Yes - it's not like you knew she had them when you met up.

That way they can seek proper medical advice before anything has a chance of developing.

I hope you DD feels better soon

Yes without a doubt

Of course you should tell them, I'd think they would be furious if you didn't and they later found out. I'm sure they'll be worried when you tell them but they can get checked out by their MW if needed.

Yes of course you tell them.

In the same situation last year, I did. They can then decide what, if anything, to do, but they need the information. I wouldn't feel bad about it, you didn't know your DD was poxy when you met up with them. Equally, they could have got CP from the person in front of them in the supermarket queue.

As for a 10 month old with CP, I recommend Poxycillin (from Boots). It's a soothing, healing mousse. Because it is a mousse you can cover a large area quickly without touching the skin. Pricey but worth it.

Actually, I can see the case for not telling them. How will it help them to know? What would doctor do to reassure or cut any risk?

Yes

I'm fairly sure that at certain stages of pregnancy there is a form of vaccine can be given, so it's well worth letting them know. I couldn't live with the consequences if one of them were infected

Yes, tell them. Particularly for the person who is 39 weeks and might give birth any day.

Lljjkk - the reason to do so is given here by the NHS website (I've pasted it below). The main thing is that the mother knows she was exposed so if her baby did develop CP shortly after birth, doctors might think of that before numerous other reasons a newborn baby was sick. Because it can make newborns very, very unwell.

NHS advice on chickenpox:

"If you catch chickenpox up to 28 weeks of pregnancy, there’s no evidence that it increases your risk of miscarriage. However, there’s a small risk that the baby can develop foetal varicella syndrome (FVS).

FVS can damage the baby’s skin, eyes, legs, arms, brain, bladder or bowel.

If you catch chickenpox between 28 and 36 weeks, the virus stays in the baby's body but doesn’t cause any symptoms. However, it may become active again in the first few years of the baby’s life, when it causes shingles.

If you catch chickenpox after 36 weeks, the baby may be infected and could be born with chickenpox.

Complications for the newborn baby:

The baby may develop severe chickenpox and will need treatment if you get chickenpox:

• around the time of the birth and the baby is born within seven days of your rash developing

• up to seven days after giving birth."

The chances are that the OP's friends won't be affected at all. I've been exposed several times in my current pregnancy. But it's always good to know.

According to this the PG woman needs a Zoster booster within 4 days of exposure to cut the risk of damage. So OP needs to tell her friend who needs to actually get the treatment on Monday at latest. Or else there may be no point in saying anything at all. Problem is that link says the Zoster should only be given if PG woman definitely has no antibodies for CP, and the blood test to determine that would never come back so quickly (would it?). I guess GP would know. But GP may not have the Zoster in stock, PG friend might have to run around the county (if she lives somewhere like I do) finding somewhere that has the Zoster stuff in stock to give.

I'm not all against telling, but am wary of causing pointless worry.

X post with Rubyroo, yes you're right about the newborn risk.

Yes, of course you should.