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My spouse is hepatitis C positive. He is not sick. I knew this when we were married, and we decided we would take it one step at a time. Doctors say the possibility of me getting infected is about 5%, so we don’t use any protection during intercourse. However, I unpredictably got pregnant. I am now 21 weeks. Does hepatitis C cause any problems to the unborn baby? Is there is any examination I can take to find out if the unborn baby has been affected?

Answer :
Hepatitis C is a very familiar infection in the US. Usually, infection becomes persistent, with about 20-30% of patients developing end-stage liver disease after 20-30 years. Transmission of the hepatitis C virus (HCV) is through contact with infected blood or body fluids and sex. Recently, hepatitis C was frequently caused by blood transfusion. Most people contaminated with HCV develop symptoms only after years of carrying the virus. When someone is infected with HCV, there is about a 5% chance of transmitting the virus to his or her sexual partner. It is possible that condom use will prevent some of transmitting the virus.

HC virus can be transmitted in the uterus from an infected mother to her unborn baby. This possibility also is estimated to be about 5%. While health authorities at this time have no recommendations for any medical treatment to avoid this transmission, they do recommend that all babies born to HCV-infected mothers be screened for infection. This involves a blood test to notice evidence of HCV itself, rather than the usual technique used for testing adults, which identifies antibodies made by the body in reaction to the virus. Since some of an infected mother’s antibodies can pass from her to the fetus during pregnancy, it would be difficult to decide whether HCV antibodies in the baby’s bloodstream were made by the immune system of the mother or the baby. The possibility of breastfeeding seems to be very small, and the American Academy of Pediatrics does not urge bottle-feeding by mothers who infected with HCV.