Chickenpox is an infection with a virus known as varicella zoster. If you type this into a search engine such as Google, Yahoo, Bing etc you can find a whole host of information about the virus specifically in a lot more detail should you wish to research it in further detail.
A primary infection with chickenpox (that is, the first time you've had the infection) can cause serious illness and even death in a pregnant woman, and either a condition known as congenital varicella syndrome or varicella infection (chickenpox) in the baby.
Having shingles (a recurrence of the virus which has been dormant in the body) while pregnant doesn't seem to have any serious consequences for the unborn baby.
What are the symptoms
" Its possible you experience a mild fever " Itchy rash of red spots appear on your skin all over " Spots crust over in around twelve days Causes and risk factors of chicken pox
Chickenpox is know to be highly contagious and is spread by respiratory droplets and close personal contact. Chicken pox incubates in around ten to twenty days and the person developing the virus then becomes infectious from about forty eight hours before the rash on the skin starts to appear.
Technically the person with chicken pox is still infectious until the last of the spots crusts over. It is possible to have had chicken pox earlier on in your childhood without knowing it. In fact, 90 per cent of pregnant women show antibodies to varicella-zoster virus. If you have not had chicken pox before, you will probably be now more vulnerable to it.
Broadly speaking, the virus is a more serious when you are an adult rather than in children. If chickenpox occurs early in the pregnancy there's a small risk of something called congenital varicella syndrome. This can include things like
Eye issues Underdeveloped arms and legs Brain damage.
Treatment and recovery
If you think you might have caught chickenpox then urgent treatment is a priority. Your doctors will probably do a blood test to check whether you already have your own antibodies to chickenpox. If you haven't, injections of antibodies will probably be offered to try to prevent infection developing. There is a vaccine for the chicken pox virus, but when you're pregnant this is usually not recommended.
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