herpes and delivery

[icujunkie]

please all of you that are getting ready to deliver. I delivered a baby and had herpes, but didn't know it. i broke out 2 days after the baby was born vaginally. he nearlly died. if you have any suspicions or know that you have it, tell your OB, you must have a c-section. herpes to a baby is deadly. contracting it for the first time while pregnant is the worst outcome for the infant.

[devo55]

I'm 13 wks pregnant and was just diagnosed for the first time with HSV - the midwife found lesions on my cervix during an exam and cultured them to see what they were. I'm positive I've had it for at least 6 years and never knew - I never had an externally-visible outbreak.

The information I got was that I will not need a c-section. They will ask me to take anti-viral meds for the last month of my pregnancy, and they will check my cervix for lesions when I go into labor. Apparently, even in the unlikely event that at that point, I do have an outbreak, assuming all else is going fine, they will let me deliver vaginally and give the baby antivirals once it is born. I need to do more research later to find out what the risks of this are, compared to the risks of a c-section.

The other information I've learned is that the risk to the baby is only high in the case of a primary (first time) outbreak that coincides with delivery. A secondary outbreak has only about a 1% chance of transmitting the virus to the baby (not that you should take this chance!).

[4someinfo]

Just so you know... you can be infected with the virus for YEARS before an outbreak happens therefore don't be so quick to blame/judge your immediate partner. Pregnancy and/or delivery is/or can be a major stress on the body which activates the virus for the very first time (which is what happened in my case). So in many cases... just look in the mirror to blame annyone. If you are as unlucky to be infected... hopefully you will be lucky enough for it to stay dormant. BTW... it's another reason why it's important to get checked and not self diagnose when having ANY kind of vaginal infection... you may think you are having a yeast infection but all the while it's something else... so get checked and think of others!

[SoCalTricia]

Not to make light of this - it is very serious. My sister had herpes when she had my nephew (but she knew it before she was pregnant). She had to deliver c-section as a result. BUT...my first thought was, "If I get herpes for the first time while I'm pregnant, my freakin' husband is going to have some splainin' to do!"

Tricia