Can I keep the baby if I get chickenpox during pregnancy?

Getting chickenpox during pregnancy will make pregnant women feel very panicked and their mood will become very low. In this case, they cannot use medication to treat it. Any medication may have a certain impact on the fetus in their belly. The most important thing is that this disease has a certain incubation period. After the incubation period, chickenpox will become more serious. You can take some non-hormone topical medications for treatment.

Control the source of infection and isolate the child until all the rashes are scabbed over. Susceptible children who have been in contact should be quarantined for 3 weeks. For people with weakened immune function, those taking immunosuppressants, and pregnant women, if there is a history of exposure, immunoglobulin G or herpes zoster immune globulin can be used for intramuscular injection. The live attenuated varicella vaccine is the first human herpes virus vaccine approved for clinical use in many countries. Follow-up observations after vaccination found that the varicella vaccine has a good protection rate for recipients.

The incubation period of the disease is 12 to 21 days, with an average of 14 days. The onset is relatively acute. Older children and adults may have prodromal symptoms such as fever, headache, general fatigue, nausea, vomiting, abdominal pain, etc. before the rash appears. In children, the rash and systemic symptoms appear at the same time.

The rash appears within 24 hours of onset, first on the scalp and compressed parts of the trunk, with a centripetal distribution. At first, it is a small pink macule, which quickly turns into a round tense blister the size of a rice grain to a pea, with a noticeable red halo around it, and the center of the blister is umbilical. Mucous membranes are also often invaded, such as the oral cavity, pharynx, conjunctiva, vulva, and anus.

During the eruption period of 1 to 6 days, the rash appears in batches one after another. The skin lesions evolve from small red maculopapules → blisters → scabs → descending, and no scars are left after descending. There is obvious pain and itching during the blister stage, and if secondary infection occurs due to scratching, slight indentations may be left. Weak people may develop high fever, and about 4% of adults may develop disseminated varicella and varicella pneumonia.

The clinical manifestations of varicella include bullous varicella, hemorrhagic varicella, neonatal varicella, adult varicella, etc. In addition, if chickenpox is infected during pregnancy, it can cause fetal malformation, premature birth or stillbirth.

Chickenpox is highly contagious, and the main routes of transmission are respiratory droplets or direct contact. After the virus infects the human body, it first proliferates and replicates in the local lymph nodes in the nasopharynx for 4 to 6 days, then invades the blood and spreads throughout the body, causing lesions in various organs. The lesions of this disease are mainly in the spinous cell layer of the skin. The cells swell and degenerate to form cystic cells with eosinophilic inclusion bodies in the nucleus. Herpes is formed after cell lysis and infiltration of tissue fluid. The blister fluid contains large numbers of infectious virus particles. Blisters are also common on the mucosal surfaces of the oropharynx, respiratory tract, gastrointestinal tract, conjunctiva, and vagina.

People of any age can be infected with the varicella-zoster virus, with infants, preschoolers and school-age children being more likely to be infected, and infants under 6 months old being less likely to be infected. The spread of varicella among susceptible populations depends mainly on factors such as climate, population density and medical and health conditions.