Melissa, pregnant for the first time, live chatted with MotherToBaby through our website: “Hi, I’m 29 weeks pregnant and wondering about vaccines. I have seen so many different things online and I am worried about getting really sick while I’m pregnant. Can you help?”Melissa is not alone. Many people contact MotherToBaby to find the most up-to-date information about vaccines during pregnancy. Protecting yourself from circulating viruses can also help protect your developing baby. Infections such …
The Baby Blog: Infections & Vaccines
When Bats Come Calling, Rabies Scare
Rachel called us the morning she woke up and found a bat hanging out in her closet. As far as she could tell, she had not been bitten. She was 10 weeks pregnant and wondered what her next steps should be. Her husband also did not detect any bites. He kindly relocated the bat to the outside of their home, but now they were both exposed to potential rabies infection. She was about to leave for work, and her husband had already left for a busy day at the office.Rachel had been down this …
Zika, Pregnancy, and Travel in a Post-Epidemic World
One of the most common Zika-related questions we get at MotherToBaby is, “What is the risk of Zika if I travel to Country X?” Or, a variation of the same: “We just got back from Country X. Do we really need to wait 3 months before we try to get pregnant?”Back when the Zika epidemic was sweeping the western hemisphere, answering these travel-related questions was fairly straightforward. It was easier to know where there was a risk for Zika infection as governments and public health organizations …
The Return of Measles
Lately, it seems like every few months a new infectious disease makes the headlines. The COVID-19 pandemic dominated the news cycle for some time, but as more and more people get vaccinated and the number of severe cases starts to decrease, the media’s focus has shifted to other known or emerging threats. From the flu and respiratory syncytial virus (RSV), to mpox and syphilis, infections seem to be spreading like wildfire. Most recently, measles has made yet another comeback, prompting many …
Top Tips For A Holly Jolly Pregnancy This Season
I can’t begin to describe how organized I was during the holiday season when I was pregnant with my first child. Since I was pretty far along (5 months), I wanted to make sure each gift was chosen way ahead of time, I knew how long it would take me to get the food trimmings just right and whether I should emphasize red or green in my decorating scheme. All of this had to be done before that “pregnancy brain” I had heard so much about set-in. Little did I know, the most important items on my …
