Genital herpes and pregnancy

Have you been diagnosed with genital herpes? It’s not exactly table talk, I realize that. But it is a subject that needs to be discussed if you do have herpes and if you are pregnant or are thinking of become pregnant. Why? Because if you are in a flare up and you deliver vaginally, you can pass the virus on to your baby and this can cause blindness, brain damage, and even death in newborns.

But – that’s if you have a flare up and if you deliver vaginally. Thousands of women who have herpes do get pregnant and do deliver healthy, infection-free babies. The important thing is awareness of the infection and prevention of the spread.

So, the first step is you must inform your doctor or midwife that you have herpes. This isn’t something you should or can hide. At this point, the doctor has two options – he or she can prescribe to you antiviral medications to prevent a break out around the time you are due to deliver or your baby can be delivered by Cesarean section (C-section).

If you don’t have herpes but your partner does, you must use condoms even though you’re pregnant. You can’t risk your partner transmitting the virus to you while you are pregnant.

So, despite the scare tactics I used in the intro – you can have a baby if you have herpes, you just need to be very careful.

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Tags: pregnancy blog, genital herpes, genital herpes during pregnancy, herpes and pregnant