Infections That Can Affect Pregnancy

By Erica John, Contributor

Women Health Coach

Being sick is not a fun feeling especially when you are pregnant and know that you have to take care of the baby developing inside you and is totally dependent on your body for every little thing. With the advancement in medical science and increase of awareness about self-care and protection, there is a high probability that you are already immune to a number of contagious diseases. Also, as a matter of fact most babies inside mother womb aren’t harmed if their mother gets some infection or illness during pregnancy. But as suggested by researchers, that are some diseases that get transmitted to babies through placenta and can lead to complications like preterm labor.

Not matter how careful you are you can’t avoid all sources of infection and special attention needs to be giving to make it less likely that you get sick. You can take certain actions to reduce the risk of serious problems for you and baby even if you get infection. Get Prenatal care is the most crucial things in your pregnancy, having blood test will tell you immune to certain infections like chicken pox or rubella and you will get to know about infection that you don’t know if you have or not like UTI (urinary tract infections), hepatitis B and HIV. Another important thing to consider is if you feel that you have be exposed to any kind of infection or getting a feeling of sickness due to any kind of exposure, it is very important to timely get yourself checked as it often helps in preventing the infection and reduce complications.

There are a number of things that you can do on your own to make sure you are not under the influence of any infection. This require simple changes in the lifestyle or the way you take things on your day to day basic like washing hands, staying away from anyone with contagious disease, not sharing water, drinking glasses or utensils, using gloves in gardening or washing disease. These practices can reduce your risk of getting sick.

You can also take measures to avoid food borne infections such as stop eating certain foods that can increase the risk of complications in pregnancy, washing fruits before eating and eat properly cooked fish, meat and eggs. Also make sure that the dishes used in the preparation of the meal are cleaned properly and are not contaminated.

List of some of the infections that can affect a pregnancy: