I know this is probably a silly Q, but what infections could a newborn (and mother) pick up?

[LadyOfRoffle]

I watched This Morning today and was freaked out by the story of the 10 day old dying from the cold sore virus. The day after DS was born I felt really ill but the MW wouldn't visit as it was too short notice, then the next day my temp was 39.5 but she still would not visit as it was a Saturday, and wouldn't until Tuesday due to it being a bank holiday. Dh then rang the hospital as I couldn't move and was shivering and they told me to come in - and within the hour DS and I were on IV anti biotics, even before our results came back. When they did come back we both had high infection markers but they treated 'too quick' to ever be able to tell what we had. I was so caught in the whirlwind of it all I didn't ask many Qs (we were in for 5 days) but hearing that story made me wonder what on earth could we have had? And how easily it could have been missed if DH didn't ring the hospital (this was the one I gave birth at, the MWs who do home visits are from another hospital due to our location, and that hospital wouldn't do anything either). I will post in childbirth also as the doctor said something about it may have been then, or through placenta so please excuse 2 threads.

Unfortunately when you have a baby you are quite physically low and you are likely to pick up anything nasty going around. Plus as a new mum you are more likely to develop septacaemia as a result of infection. The baby however gets it's immunity from you - which means anything you've had he shouldn't get. But if you catch a cold he's going to get it too - DS had influenza at 10 weeks which is incredibly rare, but I had it too - having said because I was breastfeeding he did recover quickly - I didn't but ce la vie!

Also some infections can be incubated in under 12 hours - viral flu for example. So it's not necessarily there pre-birth.