« March 2006

Herpes risk higher for infants of young parents
March 13, 2006

The chances of a baby being born with herpes are increased when the father is younger than 20 or whose age is unknown, and when the mother is younger than 25, Seattle researchers report.

However, they say, using parents' age to help target pregnancies for herpes testing would still miss a "substantial proportion" of newborn herpes cases.

Most cases of neonatal herpes occur in infants born to women with no history of genital herpes, Dr. Karen E. Mark of the University of Washington, Seattle, and colleagues note. Testing for the herpes simplex virus (HSV) during pregnancy and at delivery could help identify these women, the researchers note, and timely treatment would prevent their babies becoming infected.

Identifying risk factors for having an infant with neonatal herpes could boost the cost-benefit of screening. To that end, the researchers looked at data for all live births in Washington state from 1987 to 2002, which included 91 cases of neonatal HSV. In 74 percent of these cases there was no known maternal history of genital herpes.

Maternal age younger than 25 increased the likelihood of the baby being born with herpes by 1.9-fold, and paternal age younger than 20 or unknown paternity increased the risk 1.7 times.

For more information, visit:
http://today.reuters.co.uk/news/newsArticle.aspx?type=healthNews&storyID=2006-03-13T193510Z_01_KWA370347_RTRIDST_0_HEALTH-HERPES-INFANTS-DC.XML