I am 30 years old and have been a registered nurse for 10 years. Recently, I donated platelets to the Red Cross and was told that I was "CMV negative." If I were to seroconvert to a positive status, what signs and symptoms would I have? Would it be it dangerous? What if I were pregnant? I know that developing CMV is harmful to the baby if one is pregnant, and my husband and I are considering having a baby soon.

Denise

Cytomegalovirus (CMV) is an extremely common infection. In most cases in adults and children, this infection either causes no symptoms at all or results in a self-limited mononucleosis-like illness, with fever, sore throat and swollen glands. In patients with AIDS, CMV can infect the brain or the retina of the eye, resulting in blindness. Severe consequences can also occur when a fetus is infected. Cytomegalic inclusion disease is the most catastrophic form of the infection. The child is born with damage to multiple organs, especially the liver and the brain. If the baby survives, he or she often has significant nervous-system problems.

CMV is spread by several means: from mother to child during pregnancy and breastfeeding, from one sex partner to another, through blood transfusions and organ transplantation and through close contact. Many reported cases resulted from spread through nursing homes and daycare centers.

Once a person is infected with CMV, the virus is never completely eradicated from the body. The virus can be shed in the urine and saliva off and on forever. Occasionally, the infection reactivates, resulting in usually mild illness. This occurs most frequently in people with a depressed immune systems such as transplant recipients.

When a pregnant woman is newly infected with CMV, her baby is at significant risk of being infected while in the womb. In one study, about half of all fetuses born to newly infected women became infected. Only a minority of these babies developed any difficulties related to this infection. However, for some babies, CMV infection is disastrous.

Experts do not currently recommend that every woman be tested for CMV before pregnancy. However, testing could prove if a woman has been infected in the past. If so, in-utero CMV infection poses very little risk, if any, to her children. Since you are CMV-negative, you are susceptible to infection with the virus. Your husband should be tested to see if he is at risk of giving it to you. This is not normally done, but since you are considering having a child, I would want to know if he could pass CMV on to you and affect your unborn child.

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control (CDC) recommend that pregnant women who are CMV-negative practice meticulous hygiene, especially with handwashing. CMV can be spread by contact with body fluids such as saliva and urine, and if your nursing duties place you in contact with body fluids, you should be especially careful.There is not much more you can do to prevent becoming infected. If you do develop a mono-like illness, you should definitely be tested to rule out CMV infection. If you become infected more than about six months prior to conception, your fetus should be at essentially no risk.