In fact, cytomegalovirus infection and pregnancy are concepts that go alongside. Throughout the world, pregnant women are affected by cytomegalovirus more often. According to different data, the incidence of pregnant women ranges from 80 to 100%. In 30-60% of children, the first symptoms with cytomegalovirus infection appear already in the first year of life. Infected with this virus by contact from a sick person, and the disease itself often occurs in acute or asymptomatic form.
Cytomegalovirus infection, if present, is found in almost all liquid media of the human body. It turns out that it is easy to get infected by airborne way, by unprotected sex, it is also possible that the fetus is prenatal and the virus is transmitted to the newborn during labor or during breastfeeding. It follows that the risk of infection is maximum first in the first year of life of the child, and then at the age of the onset of sexual activity.
Cytomegalovirus is sometimes lifelong in the human body, but all signs of the disease, as a rule, are absent. A person can theoretically spread the virus all this time and be a source of infection. With a decrease in immunity, a sharp development of infection is possible.
Infection and pregnancy
The clinical manifestation of cytomegalovirus infection is nonspecific. The disease is sometimes accompanied by an increase in temperature, lymph nodes begin to increase, muscles aches, weakness. Doctors often in this case put, according to the symptoms, the diagnosis of ARI.
However, if the treatment is not started, patients may develop pneumonia (the lungs begin to become inflamed), a stomach and bowel ulcer, the situation can be complicated by hepatitis and myocarditis (inflammation of the heart muscle). In many cases, a true diagnosis can not be established.
Cytomegalovirus infection is a particular hazard in pregnancy. This is today the main reason why women are at risk of abortion, and premature births also occur. For the fetus, such an infection is dangerous with severe developmental defects: the brain, eyes, often all end in utero fetal death.
The most unpredictable and difficult outcome is possible if a woman becomes infected with cytomegalovirus directly during pregnancy, when a woman does not have immunity to it. In such cases, there is a so-called "cytomegalovirus pregnancy", during which the virus enters the fetus in a short time. If the infection occurred long before pregnancy, then the body has already formed a number of protective antibodies against the virus by the time of pregnancy, which significantly reduces the risk for the fetus.
Congenital infection - symptoms
During the detection of the virus itself in the blood or smears of a pregnant woman, the risk of intrauterine infection significantly increases. This indicates that the active process has started. Here are typical symptoms of congenital viral infection in newborns:
- delay in development, which began during fetal development;
- enlarged liver and spleen;
- jaundice;
- the presence of a rash;
- a number of disorders in the work of the heart and nervous system.
A pre-term child is usually protected from infection. In normal pregnancy, the placenta is not permeable to cytomegalovirus infection, but sometimes the virus can enter the placenta and change it in such a way that it becomes porous and the virus easily penetrates the fetus. At the end of pregnancy, protective antibodies from the mother's body are transmitted to the fetus, therefore, children born on time are largely protected from the effects of infection.
To diagnose cytomegalovirus it is possible, having handed over the usual analysis of a blood, and also urine, smears in which the virus is easily found out. In the blood, antibodies to it are more often determined. There is still no special treatment for cytomegalovirus infection. For treatment use a number of drugs that increase immunity.