How kissing my toddler son caused my unborn second child to be disabled, going deaf and wracked by daily seizures – mum speaks out to warn others
- Melissa Howard is a nurse with two children
- Her second, Huey, is damaged by CMV
- The virus is typically ‘harmless’ but can harm babies in utero
Kissing your toddler is second nature to all mothers but for Melissa Howard, doing so while she was pregnant has now turned out to be the greatest regret of her life.
The 38-year-old nurse from Margaret River in Western Australia said she ‘must have’ contracted cytomegalovirus or CMV through kissing her first-born boy or sharing his food while she was pregnant.
The virus is passed by bodily fluids, including saliva, and has only mild symptoms so often goes undiagnosed and is relatively harmless – unless you are pregnant.
Then it can travel through your blood stream and infect your baby – often causing severe complications and leading to disabilities like Cerebral Palsy and deafness.
Melissa Howard with her husband Peter Joyce and their two sons, Noah and Huey
Huey, 5, has been unwell for most of his life – recently doctors linked his disabilities and general illness to CMV a usually harmless virus
‘We get told to watch out for so many things when we are pregnant but not this virus, which is everywhere,’ she said.
‘CMV stays in your body and when you are run down, like shingles and other Herpes viruses it reactivates and if you are pregnant it can spread to your baby.’
Melissa has admitted her lack of knowledge around the virus and it’s devastating effect on babies and has since read up on it – but says hospital staff need to do the same.
Signs something wasn’t right began at 27 weeks – she delivered her second son Huey at 34 weeks after stints in and out of hospital.
‘Throughout the pregnancy my body was screaming something was wrong – but doctors thought it was that our blood was not compatible.
‘He was born pretty unwell and needed a blood transfusion, we went straight to the NICU. He had a rash all over his body which screamed CMV but wasn’t tested for it,’ Melissa said.
Melissa must have picked up CMV while pregnant – it is typically spread through bodily fluids – she says she wouldn’t have kissed her toddler or shared his food if she had known
Huey’s link to CMV was picked up after he started losing his hearing – an MRI showed calcification of the brain and damaged white matter
If they had picked up on the warning signs earlier, especially while Huey was in utero, they could have destroyed the virus and stopped it from causing more harm.
‘For the first couple of years we were in and out of hospital a lot. He had pneumonia for the first three months but this was left untreated too so his left lung stopped working,’ she added.
Problems kept popping up for the youngster.
When he was four his hearing deteriorated quickly.
‘I asked why he was standing right next to a speaker and he told me he couldn’t hear out of that ear anymore.’
The family had MRIs done to see what was going on with his hearing and initially were happy to be told his ears were ‘pristine’.
Huey has been unwell since birth and showed many signs of CMV – his mum says if doctors had picked up on it then he may not have as many complications today
Melissa explained Huey has experiences seizures, had hearing loss and even had a lung stop working in his five years
Unfortunately the MRI did pick up problems.
‘The doctors said “We need to talk about his brain”,’ she said.
This made her heart sink and her stomach start to flip.
He said: ’35 percent white matter is destroyed – he has calcifications through the brain and you are going to have to see a neurologist.’
Since then the cheery five-year-old has lost most of the hearing in his left ear and some in his right.
What is CMV?
CMV is a common virus. When healthy people are infected they frequently have no symptoms.
It is spread from person-to-person through contact with saliva, urine, tears, nasal mucus and intimate contact. Infected infants and young children, who may otherwise remain well, can easily pass this virus on to others.
Therefore, people who care for or work with young children are at increased risk of infection through activities like nappy changes.
If a pregnant woman is infected with CMV, there is a risk that her unborn baby will also become infected. This is called congenital CMV (cCMV).
CMV can cause injury to the baby’s developing brain. In Australia, more than 400 babies every year are born with a life-long disability caused by CMV – but despite this, research has found that just 14% of Australian women aged 20-40 have heard of it.