Hello everyone.
While IgG antibodies are transferred to the fetus in the 3rd trimester of pregnancy, this "borrowed" immunity they confer is very limited and lasts only a few months (3 months are supposed to be quite safe, with half a year the protection is thought to be completely gone) - and is a lot less reliable and also much shorter in preterm babies as they do not receive the full number of antibodies that are transferred during term pregnancies. The antibodies have a limited life span and therefore the vaccination schedule has been constructed to give the most immunity to the children as early as safely possible.
The vaccine against chicken pox also protects from developing herpes zoster which an infection with wild chicken pox does not. Herpes zoster happens when the chicken pox virus still residing in the ganglia is activated again - for example through stress or a weak immune system. Even today and even in very developed countries with fantastic medical care, like Germany for instance, people still die from herpes zoster (and even chicken pox).
Chicken pox also pose the risk of different degrees of illness including severe to deadly complications and the infection can cause the blood vessels in the body to change their structure (post varicella angiopathy) which can in turn lead to severe cerebral damage caused by stroke. These complications are limited to people who were infected by chicken pox, people who got vaccinated are not at risk for this.
Breastfeeding offers no protection against chicken pox.
Hope this helps.
Danica Gehringer
> Am 06.06.2016 um 18:46 schrieb Liliana Simon <[log in to unmask]>:
>
> IgG antibodies (chicken pox and all others) are transferred to the fetus through the placenta in the third trimester of pregnancy, therefore the immunity to the baby. Note that a premature baby will have less immunity than a full term one.
>
> Liliana Simon, MS, MD, IBCLC
> Clinical Assistant Professor
> Department of Pediatrics
> Pediatric Critical Care
> University of Maryland School of Medicine
> 110 S Paca Street 8th Floor
> Baltimore, MD 21201
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> 410-328-6957 (office phone)
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> On Jun 6, 2016, at 12:29 PM, cbaran2112 <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>
>
>
> I thought there was some information that babies breastfed by mother who had chicken pox would have some limited immunity for the first 6 months? Will need to research this now to confirm.
> Anecdotally, my children all caught wild chicken pox...the youngest was 7 months (he had 10 spots)...the rest of the children 19, 17, 15, 12 and 5 year Olds all had whopping cases...the 5 year old the least of the older children (she weaned less than a year before getting the pox).
> Great discussion! Looking forward to learning more!
> Colette BaranIBCLC, RLC, CD, LCCE
>
>
>
> Sent from my Verizon Wireless 4G LTE smartphone
>
> -------- Original message --------
> From: Pamela Poe <[log in to unmask]>
> Date: 6/6/2016 9:38 AM (GMT-05:00)
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Subject: Re: Chicken pox
>
> I breastfed my daughter for 4 years and 8 months...I breastfed my son for 3 years 9 months.
>
> I exposed both of them to chicken pox (because I did not want them to get the vaccine) 5 different times...the first 4 exposures did nothing...finally on the 5th exposure at 9 years and 12 years of age they both got them. Our daughter got them first...and then our son got them(so technically his may have been from her, making his a 6th exposure).
>
> I always believed that the difficulty of getting them to "catch" chicken pox had something to do with our long duration in breastfeeding and my immunity to chicken pox.
>
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