Chicken pox/ shingles

[UnilakTea]

Hi, just looking for some advice, I am in an unusual position in that I've never had chicken pox. I am 19 weeks pregnant and found out today that someone who sits near me at work has shingles. I have spoken to midwife who is checking my bloods for immunity and If not I'll need to have some jabs if I hopefully don't develop symptoms! Has anyone been in this situation before and been ok? I'm concerned about the harm that chicken pox can do to my little boy , plus insult to injury is that this is my first so I'm already on the anxious side!!

I was unlucky and lucky. I managed to have both chickenpox as a child (quite mildly) and shingles as an adult. Only plus side being I was not pregnant at the time. I would absolutely get checked by the midwife, and I have my fingers crossed for you.

To catch CP from shingles you need to be in contact with the blisters. Hopefully your colleague either has the rash covered if in a normally exposed location, or is underneath clothing.

My mum had shingles when I was a child. It took ages for it to be diagnosed. Neither my sister or me caught CP from her (neither of us had had it), and were obviously in pretty close contact with her.

Like PP said, you can only catch chickenpox from shingles if you come into contact with the spots, and only while they are actually oozing, so as long as they are covered up (and they arnt messing with them!) or have scabbed over you should be fine.
Definitely still get checked up by midwife if it gives you peace of mind though, I know how worrying pregnancy is without other worries ontop!

Try not to panic. My DH had shingles while I was pregnant with dc3, I had already had chickenpox so me wasn’t concerned but my other two dc hadn’t had it and had been in close contact with DH before he was diagnosed but neither caught it.

The dr said to DH it would have to be close contact really to catch it and just to ensure he kept covered up, So while I would definitely be checking in with midwife and avoiding contact with that colleague I wouldn’t panic.

Trying not to worry, the NHS guidelines say if you have been in the same room or had a conversation! But for obvious reasons my work can't divulge who it is, just someone who is very near me 😂 so makes it very difficult

I think what's making it worse is that I am quite angry about it! Coming into work if you have that! I'm not the only pregnant lady in the office and it seems extremely selfish.

I would be reassured by the fact that you haven't spotted anyone with weeping sores It would seem that the rash (which is usually pretty localised) is somewhere under their clothing, which makes coming into contact with the blisters unlikely.

I know what you mean by being angry though. I caught whooping cough when I was pg (18 years ago so no vaccination offered) from someone at work. They hadn't been diagnosed straight away, but even so they must have been feeling pretty ill and still came into the office.