Ebola in pregnancy: have we learned any lessons?

Abstract

Every few years, we seem destined to have a significant outbreak of an infectious disease that challenges the Canadian health delivery system and, more significantly, the global system as well. It is my observation that when these outbreaks occur, those who guide public health policy and practice and the implications for clinical care seldom consider the unique issues of pregnancy and the newborn until very late. We need to change this. As advocates for the safe and appropriate care of women and infants, we must push for our special populations to be considered early in the deliberations. More importantly, when the planning finally does include the specific issues of women and children, we need to gain insights for future emerging and re-emerging infectious diseases. I experienced the spread of HIV and AIDS in the early 1990s as an obstetrics and gynaecology infectious diseases specialist, at a time when this was a “gay man’s disease” in North America. The unique issues for women and pregnancy were not considered at all in the beginning; in fact, it was presumed that women never got this disease. When this possibility was finally recognized, the focus of