Question for midwife/professional... my nephew has herpes version of chicken pox and i'm 11 weeks pregnant...

[Milliemuffin]

Last week I was away with the in-laws and when we got home on Saturday my nephew was taken to hospital as he hadn't eaten and hardly drank all week plus his dribble smelled (so i was told). He has ulcers in his gums/mouth/throat and the doc has said it's a herpes version of chicken pox and he was made to stay in isolation for 48hrs, he's 2. Both the mum & dad have it aswell although they didnt need to go into isolation, just put on medication. They both have sore throats. As far as I know I didn't catch it, I've not had a sore throat which is the main symptom but I'm 11 weeks pregnant and my mother-in-law keeps saying how worried she is which has now made me worried. Could I have passed it onto my baby without showing signs myself? My 2 yr old did not catch it, thank god. Is there any test or am I worrying unneccessarily?

Anyone know anything about herpes & chicken pox?

Don't want to frighten you, but some of these relatively harmless viruses can have implications for the unborn child. Most people know about German measles (rubella) but it's not the only one. I'd ring the midwife or doctors surgery for a chat.

chicken pox is part of the herpes family, nothing alarming in that by itself, and as I understood it therefore there's not really any such thing as a herpes 'version' of cpox so I'm not sure exactly what your nephew has. Have the family explained anymore details to you? With ordinary cpox if you've had it before then there's no danger to you or the baby. If you haven't then you need to speak to your midwife as there can be some samll risks in the first trimester which you're on the border of. There is a blood test to test for immunity to cpox but it's not routinely administered as it's usually a relatively innocuous disease so there's no general benefit from screening.

Ring your midwife and see what she says. Good luck x