What Disease Can Damage a Baby in the Womb

While there'southward certainly no reason to panic over every piddling thing during pregnancy, some diseases are truly a cause for concern. Most can exist avoided with proper hygiene habits like regular hand-washing and staying away from sick people, while some tin can be kept at bay with vaccinations that protect Mom and Babe at the same time. And of course, common sense measures like engaging in safe sexual practice with one partner and avoiding drugs, booze, and no-no foods like raw fish are helpful measures, besides.

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Keep reading for our comprehensive guide to diseases that can plow deadly during pregnancy to keep yourself informed and on the right track to a healthy birth.

Cytomegalovirus (CMV)

Well-nigh people who come down with this common respiratory virus don't even realize they're sick with anything more than a common cold. But if you happen to get infected during pregnancy, it can spell disaster for your unborn baby.

Cytomegalovirus, or CMV as it's widely known, spreads through saliva, mucus, and other bodily fluids. Symptoms tin can include fever, sore throat, swollen glands, and fatigue, and information technology tin can crusade life-altering and sometimes fatal complications in a fetus, similar microcephaly, deafness, blindness, and even learning disabilities.

Sadly, the fatality charge per unit of CMV in unborn babies is well-nigh five per centum. According to Florencia Segura, M.D., FAAP, a pediatrician with Einstein Pediatrics, "CMV is the virtually common congenital viral infection. Every year, 20,000 to twoscore,000 infants are born with built CMV. Information technology'southward style more common and just as unsafe as Zika virus but currently gets almost no media coverage."

STDs

Chances are, your doc screened you for common sexually transmitted diseases during an early prenatal visit. That's considering many STDs can exist harmful to a fetus if you happen to be infected during pregnancy.

"Chlamydia can lead to things like preterm labor from premature rupture of membranes (PROM), equally well equally low birth weight," says Nikola Djordjevic, M.D., from MedAlertHelp.org. "Syphilis and Hepatitis C tin both take like effects, including the possibility of stillbirth. Other effects of STIs on babe can include pneumonia, blood infections, brain damage, and chronic liver affliction."

The Influenza

Getting a influenza shot is a no-brainer since contracting the influenza can accept serious consequences during pregnancy. Aside from the fact that you may have more than severe symptoms than your non-significant peers, the influenza tin can increase the likelihood of premature labor and birth defects such as neural tube defects. If it'southward astringent plenty, influenza can even lead to fetal decease.

• RELATED: Getting The Flu Shot While Pregnant: Everything Y'all Need To Know

Rubella

Rubella isn't one of the diseases during pregnancy that y'all hear much almost. Still, it's of import to stay up-to-date on vaccinations, including the MMR (measles, mumps, and rubella) vaccine, to prevent transmission. That's because fetal exposure to the rubella virus can lead to life-long complications like centre defects, liver impairment, and deafness, co-ordinate to the Centers for Illness Command and Prevention (CDC).

Toxoplasmosis

If you're a presently-to-be mama with a true cat, rejoice! You merely got out of litter box duty for nine months. That's because true cat feces often carriesToxoplasmosa gondii, a parasite that'south uncommonly harmful to a developing fetus. Other ways to contract toxoplasmosis are through gardening and eating unwashed vegetables and fruits that have been in contact with fecal matter in soil. To avoid toxoplasmosis in pregnancy, take these precautions:

• Avoid eating undercooked meat or unwashed fruit and vegetables.
• Don't rub your optics or face when preparing food.
• Go along your cat inside so it doesn't come into contact with the parasite and never let your cat consume uncooked meat.
• Ask another person to change the cat litter box. If y'all must clean the cat litter box, habiliment rubber gloves and wash your hands subsequently.
• Use piece of work gloves when gardening and launder your hands afterward.
• Keep your children'southward sandbox covered when not in use to prevent cats from using it as a litter box.

Dr. Segura estimates that in that location are roughly 400 to 4,000 cases of congenital toxoplasmosis in the United States each yr, and "the spectrum of congenital toxoplasmosis includes seizures, blindness, intellectual disability, and death."

Listeriosis

It'due south definitely a practiced thought to steer clear of cafeteria meat and soft, unpasteurized cheese during pregnancy, since these tin can increase your take a chance of contracting a type of food poisoning known as Listeria. Non only can Listeria lead to scary things like miscarriage and stillbirth, it can also infect an otherwise healthy baby at nascence, possibly leading a severe bacterial infection similar meningitis or sepsis. Treatment for neonatal listeriosis involves antibiotics, just in that location's still a rather high decease rate among newborns who contract it.

• RELATED: A Food Condom Guide for Pregnant Women

The best mode to prevent listeriosis is to avoid or use extra circumspection with foods that might be contaminated with the Listeria bacteria. The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) and the FDA provide the following advice for pregnant women on

• Do not swallow hot dogs, luncheon meats, or cafeteria meats unless they're heated until steaming hot.
• Do not eat soft cheeses such as Camembert, feta, Brie, blue-veined cheeses, and Mexican-style cheeses such every bit queso blanco fresco.
• Do non consume refrigerated paté or meat spreads. Canned or shelf-stable paté and meat spreads are safe to eat.
• Practise not eat refrigerated smoked seafood unless it is an ingredient in a cooked dish such as a casserole.
• Practise not drinkable raw (unpasteurized) milk or juice. Do not eat foods that contain unpasteurized ingredients.
• Thoroughly wash all fresh fruits and vegetables before eating.
• Considering Listeria tin grow even at refrigeration temperatures of twoscore degrees or below, utilize all perishable items that are precooked or fix-to-eat as presently as possible and clean your refrigerator on a regular basis.

Zika

A relative newcomer to the listing of scary diseases to avoid during pregnancy is Zika virus, which is transmitted to humans via musquito bites. While not a widespread threat in North America, Zika outbreaks have occurred in regions of South and Primal America, and it can as well be contracted from sexual contact with an infected partner.

"Zika virus is a teratogen, which means information technology can cause birth defects such as microcephaly, limb contractures, seizures, developmental delay, and incomprehension," according to Laura Riley, M.D., obstetrician and gynecologist-in-chief at NewYork-Presbyterian and Weill Cornell Medicine.

In order to protect yourself against this unsafe disease, Dr. Riley advises parents-to-be to avert traveling to areas with widespread Zika, to utilise bug spray with DEET if it can't be avoided, and to employ condoms if your partner has traveled to Zika-prevalent areas.

• RELATED: Zika Virus: Everything Pregnant Women Should Know

Group B Strep

Group B streptococcus (GBS) is a mutual blazon of bacteria often establish in the rectum or vagina. Pregnant women receive a GBS test between weeks 35 and 37 of pregnancy, which involves a quick swab of both areas. That's because GBS exposure tin can be deadly for a fetus or newborn. According to Grouping B Strep International, the bacteria can cause miscarriage, severe illness, or even expiry if contracted during birth.

"GBS most commonly causes infection in the blood (sepsis), the fluid and lining of the encephalon (meningitis), and lungs (pneumonia), [but can also cause] handicaps such as incomprehension, deafness, mental challenges, and/or cerebral palsy," says the Group B Strep International website.

• RELATED: Group B Strep: What It Is (and How it Can Touch on Your Birth Plan)

Chickenpox

If y'all're not vaccinated against the chickenpox—and you've never had the viral infection— definitely become the jab prior to conceiving. That's because babies who are exposed to chickenpox in the womb, especially betwixt weeks eight and 20, have a small risk of congenital varicella syndrome. This does more than than make your newborn itchy. Indeed, the Mayo Dispensary indicates that your baby may suffer from skin scarring and abnormalities of the eyes, brain, limbs and gastrointestinal system. Also, if you get chickenpox shortly before delivery, your baby could develop neonatal varicella, which could exist deadly. Finally, chickenpox increases your risk of pneumonia during pregnancy.

Fifth Disease

Fifth disease is a mutual childhood illness that you lot probably wouldn't have to worry about if you weren't pregnant. It's accompanied by mild respiratory symptoms and a "slapped cheek" appearance in otherwise healthy babies, and it's spread by infected droplets traveling through the air, similar to the cold or influenza. The trouble is that fifth disease, which is a strain of parvovirus, can exist mortiferous to a developing fetus in some cases.

• RELATED: What Is Fifth Affliction?

Luckily, there's only most a xxx per centum risk of the virus affecting your baby, merely complications are scary. "When the unborn fetus is affected, at that place'due south a five-ten pct charge per unit of fetal loss. The infection tin can lead to severe fetal anemia (decreased red blood cell counts), generalized swelling, congestive center failure, myocarditis, and a condition called hydrops fetalis in which there is excessive fluid in multiple fetal body compartments which can also atomic number 82 to fetal death," says Dr. Segura.

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Source: https://www.parents.com/pregnancy/my-body/pregnancy-health/diseases-during-pregnancy-that-can-turn-deadly/