Abstract
Pregnant women are peculiarly vulnerable to infections – the mechanism for this is multi-factorial and includes immune tolerance to the fetus (and placenta) itself, and maternal physiological changes, such as urinary stasis and reduced lung reserve. Some infections are more severe in pregnancy, such as malaria, influenza, hepatitis E and measles. Other infections place the fetus and/or newborn infant at particular risk, such as herpes simplex virus, varicella, listeria and toxoplasmosis. This unique status is recognised by the NHS in the many infection prevention initiatives available to pregnant women: free NHS dental care, the infectious diseases in pregnancy screening programme (for human immunodeficiency virus, hepatitis B and syphilis infection), the vaccination programme, and in the general advice provided by midwives and their healthcare teams. In this article, we aim to cover issues that we, as pharmacists and microbiologists, are commonly asked about regarding pregnant women, including: antibiotic safety, management of common genitourinary infections, immunisation, rash exposures and rashes.
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