#mommymonday

Share from Leann, Facebook Mommy

My daughter, Natalie, was born with Congenital CMV (Cytomegalovirus). I had never ever heard of it, but have since made it my mission to let everyone I meet know about it. It's essentially a common cold virus (in the herpes virus line) that I probably contracted from my older son who was in daycare while I was pregnant with Natalie.
About 70% of the population has had it already by adulthood, but I didn't, and so I ended up not having antibodies against it. Turns out that his small cold ended up doing damage to my daughter in-utero.
We feel very fortunate because our daughter seems to have a very good prognosis (being deaf in her left ear is her only symptom so far), but it can be devastating to some fetuses if contracted in the first trimester when the brain is developing.
They figure that 1 in 200 kiddos in the US are born with cCMV, but yet the OBs almost never tell us about it this risk. It's crazy to me. More children will have disabilities due to congenital CMV than other, well-known infections and syndromes, including Down Syndrome, Fetal Alcohol Syndrome, Spina Bifida, and Pediatric HIV/AIDS.