CMV

[Wishbone2023]

Hi all

My toddler who attends daycare caught a virus last week and spiked a 39 temperature, she had a sore throat and lost her voice, now presenting classic cold symptoms.

I am almost 6 weeks pregnant and have caught the cold she has, i am so so worried that it could be CMV? This is not tested for routinely so i won’t have any way of knowing at this point but i am so anxious about it.

I have no idea how we are supposed to avoid things like this when we have toddlers who sneeze and cough directly into your face amongst other things!

Looking for any reassurance or information anyone can share

Do you know that you were previously cmv negative? Only about 20% of adults are, and cmv is only a problem if you catch it for the first time when you're pregnant

You are going to catch bugs off your toddler, but they'll probably be harmless. Having a toddler around while you're pregnant is very normal.

I’ve got absolutely no idea if i have had it before, it all feels very mysterious and scary when i read about it online 😔 thank you for the reassuring words

My limited understanding is a blood test can tell whether it's a recent or old infection depending on the type of antibodies. I doubt you will get the test on NHS but something to consider if you go private.

Lots of women get colds from their toddlers

Easiest way to reassure yourself is to ask GP or midwife for CMV serology for yourself. This will show whether you’ve had it before (in which case very low risk for reactivation in pregnancy), or if you haven’t had it before and there’s any suspicion for CMV in first trimester then you can also have a retest 2-4 weeks later to see if your blood results change. Wouldn’t usually cause a cough/cold (most often no symptoms in adults). I’m outside the UK so I don’t know whether those tests are easily funded for you there but hopefully it’s fairly straightforward. As PP mentioned a lot of adults will have had CMV before and then you wouldn’t need to be concerned.

Try not to stress, it’s completely normal that women having their second and subsequent children will get bugs etc. I had everything when pregnant with my second last year, you name it. Unfortunately she’s also had 3 bouts of coughs/colds since being born in November too due to being exposed to way more than my first was, hopefully they will get a better immune system for it 🤞

In my experience, they would need a previous blood to compare the resoults. I had a cmv scare at 20 weeks (baby had ecogenic bowls on scan) They took blood and it came back that I had the antivirus but they didn't know if I had the virus during the pregnancy or before. They compared it with the blood the midwife took at 8 weeks (I had no idea the hospital keeps them) and they concluded I must had the virus before pregnancy as the antibody levels were the same.

I did a lot of research on this - NHS will only do a test if the scans show something concerning. You can always go private- but you probably would have to go twice for comparison if it comes back positive.

I had my 18 months old at nursery and remember having this very strange cold around 6 weeks of my second pregnancy. Thankfully, it wasn't cmv, and I already had it beforehand. The baby is all well and healthy!