Complications of chickenpox during pregnancy
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Complications of chickenpox during pregnancy
Pregnant women who have chickenpox are at risk of complications. The type of complications depend on when the infection developed during pregnancy.
- Pregnant women who have chickenpox during the first half of pregnancy may go into labor early (premature labor) or have a miscarriage.
- Pregnant women who have chickenpox in the last part of pregnancy are more likely to develop varicella pneumonia. Even a healthy pregnant woman is at risk of dying if she develops varicella pneumonia.
- Up to 2 out of 100 fetuses whose mothers have chickenpox during the first 20 weeks of pregnancy will also get chickenpox.1 This is called congenital varicella and can cause:
- Birth defects. Birth defects can include one limb (usually a leg) smaller than the other, scars on the limbs, or eye problems such as cloudy lenses.
- Low birth weight (weigh less than expected at birth).
- Seizures. The baby can have seizures after birth.
- Mental retardation.
- Shingles. Fetuses who have chickenpox will not have chickenpox again. But they can still have shingles, even as babies or young children.
- Death. Up to 7 out of 100 of the fetuses who get congenital varicella die.2
- Babies born within a few days of their mothers' chickenpox infection have a risk of severe chickenpox infection. These babies are at greater risk of complications from chickenpox.
References
Citations
Myers MG, et al. (2007). Varicella-zoster virus. In RM Kliegman et al., eds., Nelson Textbook of Pediatrics, 18th ed., chap. 250, pp. 1366–1372. Philadelphia: Saunders Elsevier.
Gardella C, Brown ZA (2007). Managing varicella zoster infection in pregnancy. Cleveland Clinic Journal of Medicine, 74(4): 290–296.
Credits
| Author | Debby Golonka, MPH |
| Editor | Susan Van Houten, RN, BSN, MBA |
| Associate Editor | Tracy Landauer |
| Primary Medical Reviewer | Michael J. Sexton, MD - Pediatrics |
| Specialist Medical Reviewer | Thomas Emmett Francoeur, MDCM, CSPQ, FRCPC - Pediatrics |
| Last Updated | May 21, 2008 |
| Last updated: | May 21, 2008 |
|---|---|
| Author: | Debby Golonka, MPH |
| Reviewed By: | Michael J. Sexton, MD - Pediatrics, Thomas Emmett Francoeur, MDCM, CSPQ, FRCPC - Pediatrics |
| Editors: | Susan Van Houten, RN, BSN, MBA, Tracy Landauer |
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