Slap Cheek during pregnancy
I discovered today that I was exposed to slap cheek last weekend. I've now got a sore throat and runny nose which could be anything but could also be early symptoms. I couldn't get hold of my OB or my GP today and my OB is now off duty until Monday. I did speak to the nurse at the GP's who didn't really know much but thought it would be OK as I was past 20 weeks. Mum is sure I didn't have it as a child so I'm probably not immune.
Has anyone else out there had it and have any advice? I'm really attempting not to get over anxious about this but did read somewhere about something called hydrops fetalis which is also linked to Rh- mothers (that's me too).
Thanks
slapped cheek during pregnancy
Hi all,
Here is my experience of the slapped cheek virus, if you are interested -
I was exposed to the parvo virus in my first trimester (I am now 28 weeks pg).
I then had an amnio at 19 weeks pg which confirmed that my baby was definitely infected with the virus. It seems that over 90% of cases of fetal anemia occur within 12 weeks of the fetus being exposured to the virus. So at about 22 weeks they checked my baby's health by listening to the blood flow in the cerebral artery with a doppler. Changes in the blood flow in this artery is one of the early warning signs of fetal anemia. This showed that everything was fine with my baby at 12 weeks past exposure. So it is very unlikely that any harm will come to my baby at this stage. I will probably have one more doppler towards the end just to be on the safe side.
I really feel for anyone who has a scare like this, for me this parvo scare has really added to my stress this pregnancy.
best wishes to everyone, I hope everyone has a good outcome!
Lisa
slapped cheek during pregnancy
Hi,
I hope you are going OK. Did you find out if you have had the virus?
I guess when I was first exposed to the slapped-check (human parvo) virus I must have been around 6-8 weeks pg. All three of my kids had it one after another and apparently it incubates for around 2 weeks. So I would have been exposed from about 6 weeks of pg until around 12 weeks.
I wasn't really sick and didn't have symptoms of the parvo virus, or didn't realise I had any. I did have morning sickness and the usual tiredness so I guess that could have masked the symptoms of a mild virus.
The majority of adults have already been exposed to the virus and are immune/ have antibodies so I wasn't really worried about catching the virus anyway. But just to be on the safe side I had a blood test at 14 weeks of pg. This confirmed that I did have, or had just had, an active infection of the parvo virus.
Being infected with parvo in the first half of pg is apparently worse than later on. Late in pg the fetus has some immune function of it's own and can fight off or recover from the virus spontaneously.
But I still wasn't too concerned about these results because it still seemed like a very low risk that the baby would pick up the virus from me. From what I have read, even when a mum has an active infection, the virus only has about a 10% chance of crossing the placenta and infecting the baby.
I did agree to have an amnio though, just to exclude the possibility that the baby was infected. And I was devastated when the results came back positive for the baby.
We had a couple of pretty bad weeks after than, being very anxious about what it would mean for the baby. Lots of the research we read was very negative and scary. But then my DH found a newer study, a really large meta-analysis which was more reassuring. It pretty much said even when a baby becomes infected in the first half of pregnancy, most times there are no lasting ill-effects. It also seemed to indicate that if the baby is all OK within 12 weeks of exposure then the chances are everything will be fine.
Then we had the doppler at 22 weeks and it all looked good so I went back to being considered a low risk pregnancy again. But I think the extra worry is something that a pregnant mum can definitely do without. It has taken a lot of the fun out of this pregnancy.
I hope you have been given the OK too. Best wishes,
Lisa