genital herpes

[potas]

What a lovely title! I am looking for a bit of reassurance that Im not the only one suffering and stressing about this. I got genital herpes about 6 -7 years ago and get regular recurrances - every 6 months or so and want to get pregnant. Im really scared about what will happen if I get an outbreak while pregnant - can it be treated? What happens when I give birth - do I have to have a caesarian - I dont want to inflict this disease on any new born baby. I read online that 20 - 25% of pregnant ladies have herpes virus - I`m sure it cant be that many but wondered if there was anyone out there who had been through this and could give me some advice.

Hi, you can use witch hazel to dry out the sores if you are having an outbreak, which is natural. or search online for natural methods. Have you been to the doctors about regular recurrences at all? maybe he/she could offer some advice to try and reduce the amount of outbreaks, stress can be a major factor. and you could also talk to your doctor about your fears of having an outbreak whilst pregnant but i daresay there have been thousands of women that have the virus and not had any problems and not needed a c-section.

Hi Potas!

From what I understand the highest transmission risk would be if you went in to labour while currently having your first ever outbreak as your body would not have any immunity. Please talk to your MW about your worries, they deal with this a lot and it is nothing to be ashamed of. If you have an outbreak and you are pregnant you cannot transfer it to the baby. It's not in your blood, the virus lives in the base of your spine and comes out when active through nerve endings, it can only be transmitted by skin to skin contact.

Another point - have you ever been on a suppressive course of aciclovir? I'm really not sure whether aciclovir is "safe" to take in pregnancy, there are documents saying it's safe to take from 20 weeks + in the case of chickenpox, but that it must not be used 36+ for suppressive therapy.

Don't worry. I had the same issue - it's only a problem in labour. I had a few flare ups during pregnancy (having not had any for years before) which were minor and I just rode out. Consultant then put me on anti-virals for the last couple of weeks to avoid any complications. Make sure it goes on your records when you go to your booking in appt and bring it up regularly in your midwife and GP appts (I had access to a consultant as was high risk for other reasons).

Hi I feel where you're coming from, I contracted it a few years ago before I met DH. When we decided to ttc we went to the GU clinic together to get advice, they basically said that we have it the right way round, if it was him who had it it could have caused problems. The biggest risk is when a mother gets her 1st infection while pregnant.

I'm lucky that after the 1st year or so of having outbreaks every month they stopped but it was still a worry during pregnancy and even more so after dd was born, but she is fine she's a perfectly healthy little girl and hopefully has developed an immunity to it so she will never have to go through the hell that it is.

My mw referred me to the a consultant. SHe was great, went through everything and said that the risk was something like 0.01% of passing anything onto baby. The figures are that 1 in 100 women will have sores at time of labour but only 1% of those will cause problems for the baby. If you are worried you ca have a low dose of aciclovir from about 36wks to prevent any outbreaks and just be very very aware. I didn't have the aciclovir as the consultant didn't feel I needed it (I wish I had just to have put my mind at rest after the birth) and had a normal vaginal delivery with no i/v aciclovir and all is well.

I've also found that using zovirax when you get that tingle in your leg works a treat. It does say not to use it down there but I used to and I still always have a tube in the bathroom cabinet just in case.

just an update - I am now pregnant and have had a couple of little outbreaks which I just tolerated and they settled down far quicker and were much less painful than before. My consultant is going to put me on acyclovir for the final month as the only risk really is if I give birth naturally while have active lesions. Going to the doctor and getting referred to the consultant was the best thing I did as the consultant was fantastic at putting my mind at rest.