A home birth with herpes

According to the stats, one in Five Americans has genital herpes. At one point the females within that figure will conceive and be faced with the challenges of a natural birth with herpes. The risked posed to the newborn child of coming into contact with the mother's lesions if she is having an outbreak at the time of birth. Scary business. Naish and Roberts in their book Healthy Lifestyle Better Pregnancy writes... "One infection that may persist into pregnancy, regardless of your preconception care, is herpes, as the virus is impossible to eradicate. It is a particular problem if there are lesions present in the birth canal at the time of delivery. This can have severe repercussions for the health of the baby, including brain damage, blindness or death, and a caesarean section may be necessary."

It was happy to remain dormant if I played by the rules which were very simply. Eat well. In fact my herpes outbreaks have come to signal to me today that something is not right within my body and is an ally rather than the enemy. I knew that I had more than reasonable amount of control over my outbreaks. I knew what brought them on and could anticipate within eight hours of eating a culprit food the tell tale signs that it was going to happen, that I would have an outbreak. Armed with this knowledge I ate right. I supplemented my diet with nutritional supplements to ensure that spur of the moment cravings would not undermine my strategy because I know what it is like wanting to have a pizza, badly, being too tired to cook and tasting the pizza knowing it’s only a phone call and fifteen minutes away. That craving can be doubly worse when pregnant. So I armed myself. Was I getting enough calcium? And my zinc stores were they adequate? Every pregnant woman especially one with herpes should read Naish and Roberts’ Healthy Lifestyle Better Pregnancy and stick to the chapter on supplements. I would swear by it.

I will admit I was thrown off once during my pregnancy. Six nems fried in God knows what oil from the Chinese fast food on an afternoon when I had nothing in the fridge. Never again. Never. What if I had done that closer to my due date. I was brought quickly to my senses and since then the fridge or cupboard has never been bare and I’ve never had another outbreak during a pregnancy. God forbid. Those risks are real and if you’re going to go for the natural birth your commitment must be firm and your will is never to waiver.

Milk was off the menu, any dairy product for that matter and gluten. So forget the pizza. Sunflower oil or anything fried in it. And stress. All reasonably within my control. There are alternative sources of calcium and gluten free cereals like amaranth and quinoa are nutritionally packed foods (just get yourself a mill and be creative). As for stress I got my boss to pack in my classes all in the morning and with half an hour lunch time my day ended at two pm. After a half an hours walk back home I was free to relax on the sofa and go to sleep. What stress?

Oh yes the one which comes when your insides contract and try to expel the baby. Well if I got to this date outbreak free and providing this labor thing didn’t drag on for three days I would be home free. Because that’s the amount of time my body needs to transform stress, gluten or lactose into a live outbreak.

So what’s there to do? Find out what triggers your outbreak. Log it. Keep away from it. Find a substitute for it so that you don’t miss out on the nutrition the culprit food would provide. Ensure that your nutritional needs are being met and take your supplements as back up. You wouldn’t drive your car without insurance would you? Take them just in case. Take them to keep the cravings away for they don’t undermine your efforts at staying away from foods which trigger your outbreaks.

And relax. If push does come to shove (no pun intended) and you need to have a caesarean make peace with that before the date. Do your best but be willing to allow for the unpredictable, well in our case the possibly predictable.

Mandatory reading: Healthy Lifestyle Better Pregnancy By Naish and Roberts (If I could get this book in France it should be easier in an English speaking country)

Check out the book A Martyr for Mothers – mothering at the other end of the continuum ( the first chapter is called My Homebirth My Hospital Birth. The book is written by a mother who has herpes – me (Christy Charles) © Christy Charles June 2007

Inspirational Stories - Share Your Courage with Others - Herpes Support - Christy Charles gave me permission to use this piece on my site. I hope that you found it to be helpful for you and especially if you are pregnant and have herpes. You can also read a little bit about how my pregnancy with herpes went over on My Herpes Biography. This is our forum for Mom's that are Pregnant and Worried about STDS.

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