PreConceptional Counseling: Checking for Chicken Pox and Rubella Immunity

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• 0:04Introduction
• 0:25Rubella and pregnancy
• 1:33The rubella vaccine
• 1:55Chickenpox immunity
• 3:03Vaccine timing
• 3:25Next steps

Full transcript

1. 0:04Introduction

   Hi ladies, today I want to teach you guys about the importance of checking for chickenpox and rubella immunity prior to becoming pregnant. So everybody's heard of chickenpox, and I think rubella, but these are two very common childhood illnesses that can cause problems in a pregnancy if a woman is not immune to them.

2. 0:25Rubella and pregnancy

   Let me start by explaining rubella. Rubella is a childhood illness that many of us don't see anymore because most of us have been vaccinated against it. We received the vaccines that tilt as children and perhaps even received booster shots afterwards, but these vaccines can wear off. So if a woman becomes pregnant and her vaccination has worn off, or perhaps she never received a vaccine, maybe lived in a different country where they didn't offer it, or for whatever reason her family declined it.

3. 0:48

   Then when she gets pregnant, if she's not immune to rubella and then she runs across someone who has rubella and gets infected with the virus, that virus can then be transferred through the placenta to the baby.

4. 1:10

   If that happens, the baby can develop birth defects. Commonly the babies can have blindness, they can have hearing impairments, developmental delay, so mental and intellectual delay. They can be very serious and life-altering defects for a child. And this is particularly tragic because we have vaccines to protect a woman against this illness and these outcomes.

5. 1:33The rubella vaccine

   But the vaccine contains a weakened live virus, so we can't give this type of vaccine to a pregnant woman. We'd have to give it to her before she becomes pregnant. So if you go into your doctor ahead of time and ask them to screen you for rubella, and we find that you're not immune, the doctor can give you the rubella vaccine ahead of time and prevent all of those scary birth defects that I just mentioned.

6. 1:55Chickenpox immunity

   So that's why it's so important to get checked for rubella. The argument is similar for varicella, that's the name of the virus that causes chickenpox. Now, in chickenpox, many of us have actually had chickenpox as a child, and most often, not always, but most often, having had an illness gives you lifelong immunity.

7. 2:17

   Now, I make a caveat to that because I've had a few patients that have been told that they had chickenpox as a child, but when we check their immunity, we still saw that they were not immune for some reason.

8. 2:40

   So even if you've had it, I personally recommend you get checked again prior to becoming pregnant, because similar to the rubella situation, if a pregnant woman is not immune to the varicella virus, or a chickenpox virus, and she gets exposed to it while pregnant, it can also cause birth defects such as visual impairment, developmental delay.

9. 3:03Vaccine timing

   So it's the same exact argument as for rubella. You should get it screened ahead of time, and if your doctor finds you're not immune, you should get the varicella or chickenpox vaccine. The most important thing to understand about these vaccines is they need to be given when we are sure you're not pregnant, so we usually instruct our patients to get it while they're on their period, so we know you're not pregnant. And then you only have to wait one month to conceive because it's alive.

10. 3:25Next steps

    These are live viruses. We want to make sure they're out of your system, and then you can start trying to get pregnant. So that's it. That's why it's important to go in ahead of time. And as always, I want to remind you that the advice I give in these videos should not be generalized to everyone. You need to have your own discussion with your doctor, make sure it's safe for you to get vaccines.

11. 3:49

    That's not true for everyone, and have an individualized discussion. Thanks for listening, and don't forget to subscribe.