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Your child may be part of the first generation of Americans to be vaccinated
against herpes. According to the New England Journal of Medicine, a new vaccine
has been shown to be 70 percent effective in protecting women against genital
herpes and its cold-sore cousin, lip herpes. The vaccine only worked for women
who had never been exposed to either form of the virus.
Experts estimate that as many as one in four pregnant American women today are
living with genital herpes. The vaccine won't cure these women (herpes is
incurable), but it might someday protect their babies - as long as the babies make
it through conception, gestation and birth without being exposed to the virus.
While most babies of herpes-positive parents are born perfectly healthy, about
2,500 a year are born with neonatal herpes. At least 20 percent of those babies
die, and many more survive with brain damage, mental retardation, blindness and
cerebral palsy. The risk of neonatal herpes casts a shadow over the pregnancy
experience. Expectant moms must be monitored for outbreaks, and they face
caesarean section if a herpes outbreak occurs near the time of delivery.
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Boys Have Bigger Appetites