Anyone with experience of parvovirus in first trimester please?

[MightilyOats]

DS had horrible cold-type virus last week which seems to have been going round nursery. Woke up this morning with slap cheek marks on his face and docs have confirmed it's probably parvovirus.

I'm 8+3 and have upper respiratory tract viral infection according to out of hours doc today. I'm presuming this means I've got the parvovirus as timings seem to work for that. Having a blood test tomorrow to see if it is or not.

Has anyone any experience of this in early pregnancy? I'm already nervous as had early mc this summer. What should I be asking for? Dr didn't seem particularly concerned but the hpa and nice seem to take maternal infection very seriously. Any advice welcomed.

Bump?

Hi Mightily, no personal experience but have dealt with it as a GP and didn't want to read and run.

The first step is a blood test to see if you have it at present or have ever had it (about 60% of women have been previously infected with it- often without even knowing it- and therefore aren't at risk of becoming infected during pregnancy). It's for parvovirus IgM and IgG and can be sent from GP surgery.

If you haven't had it before and are shown to be positive for current infection it puts your baby slightly more at risk of fetal hydrops (a condition of fluid overload that may require him or her to have a blood transfusion in utero).

But this isn't a given either- if you were diagnosed with current infection it would mean more intensive fetal monitoring (i.e. more scans)to monitor the baby for signs of this condition.

My advice would be to ask for the blood test and wait and see, remembering that this is a prime time of year for all kinds of cold and flu viruses so it's not at all certain that your own symptoms are due to parvovirus, even if your DS has it.

I haven't come across any cases of fetal hydrops due to parvovirus in my career to date but have seen plenty of worried mums for testing so it's always a case of hopeful waiting.

Best of luck x

Many thanks for your reassurance LittleLight that's really helpful. Had my igg/igm blood test today so hopefully should know within 48 hours.

Good to know fetal hydrops seems to be a rarer occurence

Both my DCs had slapped cheek when I was in the first trimester, DS2 at 4 weeks and DS1 at 7 weeks. You're more than likely to be immune to it, so don't worry.

I had the blood test and I wasn't exposed but I wasn't immune either so they repeated the test every two weeks up to about 16 weeks to check I didn't get the virus.

Even if you do catch it, the chances of passing it on to the baby are very small - about 10% I think. If you are infected they will keep on monitoring you to check on the health of the baby and intervene if necessary - I think the biggest risk is for women exposed to slapped cheek but it isn't picked up.

In the end the blood tests came back clear and the doctor said that since both kids had had it, chances were it wasn't parvovirus in the first place, there are a lot of childhood illnesses that can present with a similar rash and they don't do the blood tests on children to identify exactly what they've got!

The risks are quite small, I'm sure you'll be fine - good luck!

My step daughter had parvovirus when I was 30 weeks pregnant, my doctor did a blood test which came back that I was immune. I must have had it at some point but didn't know, he said this is the case in most cases!

Thanks for all the replies, blood test came back positive for immunity so big relief! Seem to have common-or-garden lurgy atm but glad it's not parvovirus as I wasn't looking forward to the achy joints phase!