Chicken pox during pregnancy

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Chickenpox is a highly contagious viral disease that is transmitted by direct contact or by air. It is not frequent that its contagion occurs during pregnancy, since the majority of the population has antibodies against the virus that produces it.

Below you have an index with all the points that we will discuss in this article.

Index

Chickenpox during pregnancy

However, if a pregnant woman gets chickenpox, this infection can cause a series of complications in the baby if it is spread. Therefore, it is very important that those women who have not passed the disease get vaccinated if they wish to become pregnant.

Varicella virus

In case of doubt about whether chickenpox has been passed or not, it is possible to perform a blood test to see if immunity exists. In case of having it, it would not be necessary to be vaccinated.

It is usually advised to wait a month after getting vaccinated before trying to get pregnant. This vaccine can not be administered during pregnancy, but it can be administered during lactation.

The effects of this viral disease will depend on the time of pregnancy in which chickenpox is transmitted to the future baby.

Contagion in the first and second trimesters

In the case of a pregnant woman contracting chickenpox during the first trimester of pregnancy, there is a small probability (about 1.5%) of the baby being infected and born with a birth defect called congenital varicella syndrome.

The risk of the baby contracting this syndrome is higher (around 2%) when the mother contracts chickenpox between weeks 13 and 20 of pregnancy.

If the future baby has the congenital varicella syndrome, it can grow more slowly in the uterus, which can compromise its normal development.

Congenital varicella is characterized by a series of birth defects. The most common are:

  • Scars on the skin
  • Malformations of the extremities
  • Microcephaly (abnormally small head)
  • Vision or hearing problems
  • Seizures
  • Problems in muscles and bones
  • Problems of mental or motor development

Some babies exposed to chickenpox during pregnancy do not have any symptoms when they are born but develop herpes zoster during early childhood.

Contagion in the third trimester

For the mother, pneumonia is the most frequent complication when contracting varicella in the third trimester.

Congenital varicella syndrome in the newborn

For the baby, during the third trimester the likelihood of getting chickenpox is practically nil, except in the case in which the pregnant woman suffers in the last days before the birth, which is the most dangerous moment of infection for the baby.

If the mother-to-be has varicella symptoms at an interval of 5 days before and 2 days after giving birth, there is a high risk that the baby will develop newborn chicken pox (15-30% probability).

This limited period of time until birth is not enough for the mother to produce enough antibodies to transmit immunity to the baby.

Therefore, the weak immune system of the newborn could not fight chickenpox and it could die if not treated quickly.

To avoid the serious effects of neonatal varicella, if the mother has begun to have symptoms of chickenpox before or shortly after delivery, the newborn is given an injection of varicella antibodies to immunize.


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