Mother with Herpes Unwittingly Kills Baby with a Kiss

Hannah Tennant-Moore — Fri, 27 Feb 2009 18:09:00 GMT

This heart-wrenching story is made bearable by the courage of the mother it involves, who has taken her tragedy as a chance to educate others.

Ruth Schofield contacted the herpes simplex virus (HSV) for the first time when she was in her final term of pregnancy. She was prescribed antibiotics for her mouth ulcers, which were still present when she gave birth to baby Jennifer.

With no warnings to the contrary, Schofield naturally kissed and cuddled her newborn baby. Soon after her birth, Jennifer stopped feeding and seemed overly sleepy, so Schofield readmitted her to the hospital. Jennifer had no cold sores or outward signs of having contracted herpes, but the virus had spread throughout her organs, and she died when she was just a few weeks old.

Doctors believe that herpes was deadly in this case because Schofield had never been exposed to the virus until the very end of her pregnancy, so her body didn’t have time to build up antibodies and pass them on to her daughter.

A few years after the loss of Jennifer—and 15 months after the birth of her second child—Schofield has started campaigning to raise awareness about the potential deadliness of HSV, which kills six babies a year in the UK, where Schofield lives.

“There is not one single sign in a chemist's and nowhere on leaflets does it say not to go near an end-term pregnant mother or newborn baby [if you have HSV]," she says. I have to agree that there is far too little awareness about this fatal, yet avoidable, situation.

Did you know that a cold sore could kill a baby?

Photo: parents.com

Five-Year-Old Catches STD From Dad's Towel?

JeanneSager — Fri, 03 Oct 2008 18:58:00 GMT

Reasons you shouldn't sleep with a prostitute. A. Your wife will hate you. B. Your name will be all over town for getting caught with a hooker. C. You might catch something and pass it on to your kid.

For one Australia Dad, the answer is all of the above. His then 5-year-old daughter was removed from the family home in 2006 when she was diagnosed with a sexually transmitted disease. He admitted to consorting with a prostitute in Bali, but said he never touched his daughter inappropriately. The dad claims she contracted the disease by using the same towel.

As improbable as it sounds (and it did to the first court who heard the case), a judge has sent the little girl back to her parents - including a mom who is a "less than enthusiastic supporter" of her husband (see above - answer A). Judge Jonathan Williams says there isn't enough evidence the girl was actually abused. He believes the father.

That a judge would put a child back in the home of a suspected molester without being 100 percent certain is creepy enough. But so is the fact that a number of STDs could easily be passed to a child - even, according to reputable health sources, by a shared towel.

~~Public~~ Pubic lice (that's the real name for crabs, folks), can be transferred by sharing a bed with someone (and who hasn't slept with their child in the bed at one point or another) or that shared towel. The same goes for scabies. And oral herpes, it turns out, can be transmitted, well, orally. So next time you have a cold sore, you might want to refrain from showing off how good those pureed pears are by licking their spoon.

Image: Superior Water

They Say: Dads Cheat, but Not for Sex

Strollerderby : cold sore

Mother with Herpes Unwittingly Kills Baby with a Kiss

Five-Year-Old Catches STD From Dad's Towel?