Mum Shares How A Virus During Pregnancy Had Severe Effects on Her Baby

A mother has shared how a flu-like virus she contracted while pregnant could have a tremendous effect on her unborn baby.

Rebekka Murray, 24, from Mackay in Queensland had been through two uncomplicated pregnancies, so she thought her third would be just as easy.

However, at her 20th week scan, her doctor saw a bright spot on her baby’s bowel, which was not that alarming but decided to scan her again at 24 weeks. “The second scan was worse. His head was only measuring in the second percentile, his bowel was still showing bright patches and his femur was too short,” Rebekka said.

She was given blood tests and she and her husband, Reid, 28, were told of the possibilities such as chromosomal defects or genetic conditions that could have caused the symptoms. However, when the doctor saw the results, he asked Rebekka if she had been sick during her pregnancy, which was quite surprising for her.

“He asked me if I’d been sick, and I thought about it and I told him, yes, I’d had a flu at the beginning of the second trimester,” Rebekka said. She remembered that she had felt pretty unwell, she’d had aches and temperature and had vomited a few times.

“Then I got better and I never gave it anymore thought,” Rebekka said.

However, it turned out that the ‘flu’ was actually common, but far more dangerous for a pregnant woman.

The results of Rebekka’s blood test showed that the illness she had contracted earlier in the pregnancy was actually Cytomegalovirus (CMV), a common virus that around 50 percent of people will contract by the time they reach adulthood, and up to 85 percent of people will have contracted once they are in their 40s. Once a person gets ill with CMV, the virus remains alive but usually inactive (dormant) within that person’s body for life.

Despite its widespread transmission, most people haven’t heard of Cytomegalovirus because the symptoms often mimic the common cold.

If a pregnant woman has never had CMV and contracts it during her pregnancy, there is a risk of the virus crossing the placenta and infecting the unborn baby, which happened to Rebekka.

Rebekka was closely monitored and just after 34 weeks, her baby boy, she named Jackson, was delivered via emergency C section.

Little Jackson, now four months, spent a month in the intensive care unit because he had a low platelet count and an enlarged liver, and he struggled to thrive. “He’s profoundly deaf and wears hearing aids, but other things might pop up while he’s developing too, including  epilepsy, calcification of the brain. We will just have to take it as it comes,” Rebekka said.

In Australia, about one in 1000 infants will be born with a congenital CMV infection.

Source: Kidspot.com.au