If you are pregnant, chickenpox can occasionally cause complications for both you and your baby. The risk of you developing pneumonia is slightly higher if you are pregnant. Up to 1 in 10 women with chickenpox develop this condition. The further you are into your pregnancy, the more serious pneumonia tends to be.
If you get chickenpox while you are pregnant, the risk to the developing foetus is small, and it will often have no effect on the baby whatsoever. However, your child may develop shingles during the first few years of life if the varicella infection that occurred while he or she was in the womb is reactivated.
Chickenpox can affect your baby in different ways, depending on what stage of the pregnancy you are in. The effects of these stages are outlined below.
The first 20 weeks
If your baby is infected with chickenpox in the first 20 weeks of your pregnancy, there is a risk that your child could develop a condition known as fetal varicella syndrome. However, this syndrome is rare, and the risk of it occurring in the first 12 weeks of pregnancy is less than 1%. Between 13 and 20 weeks, the risk is 2%. Although rare, this syndrome can cause serious complications including:
scarring of the skin,
eye defects, such as cataracts, which causes the lens in the eye to cloud over,
shortened limbs, and
brain damage.
After 37 weeks
If you contract chickenpox after 37 weeks, your child is at risk of being born with chickenpox. The risk of your baby being born prematurely is also slightly increased.
If you develop chickenpox seven days before, or seven days after giving birth, your newborn baby may develop a more serious type of chickenpox. In a few, severe cases, this form of chickenpox can be fatal.
You are at greater risk of complications if you catch chickenpox when you are pregnant if:
you smoke, or
you have a lung disease such as bronchitis or emphysema, or
you are taking steroids or have done so in the last three months.
See your GP urgently if you are pregnant and think you may have chicken pox. The same advice applies if you think you have chicken pox within seven days of giving birth. This is so that any necessary precautions can be made to prevent you or your baby developing any further complications.
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