Newborn baby got chickenpox from mother

The Department of Pediatrics, Central Hospital for Tropical Diseases has just received and treated two newborn patients with chickenpox. It is noteworthy that both patients were infected by their mothers.

The first case is a 5-day-old baby boy in Hanoi, who developed rashes and blisters all over his body. Previously, the baby's mother had also been diagnosed with chickenpox on the 3rd day after giving birth and was immediately isolated from her child. The family took the baby to the hospital and was diagnosed with chickenpox. Fortunately, the baby's condition is good because he can eat and drink normally and has no complications. Currently, the rashes on the baby's body have dried up, almost disappeared and no new rashes have appeared.

The second case is a 2-month-old boy, also in Hanoi. About 3 days before being admitted to the hospital, the boy began to develop blisters that spread all over his face and body; the rash grew rapidly and densely. The boy also had symptoms of coughing, wheezing, and a fever of 38 degrees Celsius, so his family took him to the hospital.

Regarding this case, Dr. Le Thu Trang, Department of Pediatrics, Central Hospital for Tropical Diseases, said: "When admitted to the hospital, the child had pneumonia, accompanied by a multi-morphological, multi-age blister rash all over the body. The child was given antibiotics, antiviral drugs, and aerosols. Currently, the child's old rashes have shrunk, no new rashes have grown, and the bronchopneumonia has stabilized."

According to Dr. Le Thu Trang, if a newborn has chickenpox, the family needs to take the child to the hospital early for monitoring and timely treatment to avoid dangerous complications that can affect the child's life such as hepatitis, pneumonia or encephalitis due to the child's weak resistance.

In particular, when detecting chickenpox in newborns, parents should take their children to medical facilities early, and should not self-treat at home. If the mother has chickenpox while breastfeeding, she must clean her hands regularly and wear a mask to avoid direct transmission of bacteria through droplets (talking, coughing, sneezing) or secretions from blisters.

For children under 6 months of age with chickenpox, they need to take antiviral drugs within the "golden hour" of the first 24 to 48 hours. If antiviral drugs are taken later than 24-48 hours, the child's rash is more likely to have more severe and more numerous complications.

"Vaccination against chickenpox is the most effective and long-term measure to prevent chickenpox. For children, vaccination against chickenpox is even more important. Families should take their children to reputable vaccination facilities for consultation and vaccination. When in contact with someone who has chickenpox and has not been vaccinated against chickenpox, people need to get vaccinated within 5 days. Sick people need to be isolated to avoid infecting family members and the community," Dr. Le Thu Trang advised.

Accordingly, chickenpox is an infectious disease, causing epidemics. The disease is transmitted through the respiratory tract, clinically the disease manifests as fever, rash blisters on the skin of many ages, itchy rash. Most of the disease is usually benign, however there can be some complications such as secondary dermatitis, encephalitis, pneumonia, myocarditis, nephritis, arthritis and often occurs in special conditions such as people with immunodeficiency (cancer, chemotherapy, immunosuppressive drugs), infants, children, people with chronic diseases.

The incubation period for chickenpox is usually 10-14 days. Chickenpox is contagious while the rash is still present.