Pregnancy and chicken pox.... advice needed!

[MrsMar]

Is exposure during pregnancy to chicken pox dangerous? ds has just started coming down with it and he was with my pregnant friend a few days ago just when he would have been at his most infectious. Is she at risk of something nasty? She's never had chickenpox herself so probably hasn't got any resistance.

She will need to go to doctors and have jab!

Best friend had this when was pregnant and had to have huge needle as is dangerous in pregnancy - she had no immunity to it whatsoever though.

eek! oh gawd, poor thing. I'd better go and break the bad news to her!

My doctor told me whilst I was pregnant with ds2, in the early stages that if my ds1 did get chiken pox (as he had been exposed to it that week) that I would be best of having a termination because of how dangerous it can be.
Luckily for all of us really ds1 didnt get chiken pox and ds2 is very very healthy

Blimey, that's all a bit scary! It's a good argument for making sure you get it while you're young!

I am a midwife in a unit where we receive lots of phonecalls from women who have been in contact with chicken pox. If a woman is not SURE that she has had it we offer a blood test to check for immunity. It is sometimes even possible to check from the booking bloods that are stored in the lab therefore not re taking bloods from the women. Lots of women who are sure that they have never had chicken pox come back immune to it anyway. So it is simple to check and she may well already be immune to it.

Imum. Your GP is shocking, you dont need to worry unless you have not had CP before.

The blinking woman who scanned me at 6 weeks went down with it and I had a call a week later.

DS had it last month and I'm pg (28 weeks when he became contagious).

Here's what my obstetrician said:

If you had it, you will not be infected.

Your immunity protects your baby.

In the first trimester the chance of passing it on to baby is there but quite remote if the contact with infection is not prolonged (IE your friend should be OK, but you would not be if you had to care for a sick child.

The protocol at that stage of pregnancy however is to have the test to check for immunity. Tell your friend.
On a positive note, 80 to 90% of the adult population carries the virus even if they do not remember having developped a case of CP.

Middle pregnancy no major problem.

Very dangerous if contact with CP in the last weeks of pregnancy because if the mother carries the active virus at birt the baby is infected and condition is extremely dangerous for newborns.

All in all, there is a high probability she'll be OK but it's for her doctor to say, not us!

PS: she can be given a course of antivirals (acyclovir)for extra precaution. That is comomnly available and routinely given to pregnant women if any worry arises.

I never had chickenpox despite being in contact with it lots of times - assumed I must be immune somehow. DH thought he'd had it as a child and caught it when I was 7 months pregnant. He was very ill with it and there was no-one to look after him but me. They tested my blood and found no immunity so I had to have the jabs. I was told that I had been injected with £500 worth in each butt cheek not too painful and I am a wuss. I had to be tested again a couple of weeks later and found I still had no immunity. I was lucky that this was the safest time to be exposed. I hope your friend is immune and has nothing to worry about - the vast majority are.

I'm a primary school teacher and we had cases of chicken pox in our school. My mum wasn't sure if I'd had it or not, so I went to the doctor, had a blood test to check my immune status which luckily was fine. If it hadn't been, I was told that i would have to have some injections to boost my immunity.

So, it's all manageable, but she should definitely get herself checked out if she's not sure. Rubella is the more dangerous one, particularly in early pregnancy.