Can Herpes Be Passed to Baby by Kissing
Deadly Osculation: Can a Baby Contract a Lethal Virus from a Cold Sore?
A newborn baby in Iowa died this week from an infection with the virus that causes cold sores, which she likely contracted from a osculation, her doctors say. But how does this happen?
The infant, Mariana Reese Sifrit, was salubrious when she was born July 1, according to ABC News. Six days later, Mariana'due south parents got married, and merely hours after the wedding, Mariana looked sick — she became lethargic and stopped feeding, and her parents took her to the hospital, co-ordinate to ABC.
Doctors diagnosed Mariana with meningitis, which is a swelling of the membranes that cover the brain and spinal cord. They said her meningitis was due to an infection with canker simplex virus 1 (HSV-ane), the virus that causes common cold sores. Both parents tested negative for the virus, and her doctors said Mariana likely caught the virus from a kiss from someone who came to see the newborn, according to ABC. Mariana died Tuesday (July 18).
"Merely keep your babies isolated," Mariana'southward female parent, Nicole Sifrit, advised parents when she spoke with the ABC affiliate WQAD-Television set. "Don't let people kiss your baby. Make sure they enquire earlier they choice up your baby," Sifrit said. [seven Baby Myths Debunked]
In newborns, catching HSV-1 infection from a osculation is "unusual but non unheard of," said Dr. Otto Ramos, medical director of the Partition of Pediatric Infectious Diseases at Nicklaus Children'due south Hospital in Miami. That'due south because people with HSV-1 infection — either with or without cold sores — can shed the virus and transmit it to others, said Ramos, who was not involved in Mariana'due south case and and then cannot comment on the case straight.
However, in near cases of HSV-1 in infants, Ramos said, the babe catches the virus from its mother during commitment, and in threescore percent of such cases, the mother had no signs or symptoms of infection, Ramos told Live Science.
Indeed, according to a study published in March in the journal The Lancet Global Health, about 85 percent of newborns with herpes simplex infection catch the virus during commitment, while but 10 percent take hold of the virus later on nascence from someone with an infection. The other v percent catch the virus in utero.
Herpes simplex viruses tin can cause serve complications in newborns, and left untreated, the infection results in decease in sixty per centum of cases, The Lancet study said. These viruses tin infect the brain, leading to a condition called herpes encephalitis, which tin outcome in seizures, intellectual disabilities, vision and hearing loss, according to the March of Dimes. The viruses can too infect multiple organs at the same fourth dimension, including the liver, lungs and kidneys, and most thirty percent of infants with these widespread infections die, the March of Dimes said.
About 1 of every 3,500 babies built-in in the United States, or less than 1 percent, contracts canker simplex virus each year, according to the March of Dimes.
Ramos said newborns are particularly vulnerable to herpes simplex virus infections because their immune system is non mature enough to thwart the virus. "The baby doesn't take an immune organization that tin can fight information technology off," Ramos said.
New parents should exist extremely conscientious not to permit people with whatsoever kind of infection have close contact with their baby, Ramos said.
"You have to be very careful and very vigilant that no i who has any kind of infection is around the baby," Ramos said. "People should not be kissing babies if they have whatever kind of infection," he said.
To preclude HSV-1 infections in babies after birth, the National Institutes of Wellness says that people with common cold sores should non come up into contact with newborn infants. Parents and caregivers with common cold sores should wear a mask and wash their hands carefully before coming into contact with their baby, the NIH said. Good handwashing is also of import for anyone who has contact with a newborn, Ramos said.
Original commodity on Alive Scientific discipline .
Rachael has been with Live Science since 2010. She has a primary'south degree in journalism from New York University's Science, Wellness and Environmental Reporting Programme. She also holds a B.Southward. in molecular biological science and an One thousand.Due south. in biological science from the University of California, San Diego. Her work has appeared in Scienceline, The Washington Post and Scientific American.
Source: https://www.livescience.com/59870-newborn-herpes-infection-deadly.html
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