Our experience in neonatal varicella.

Abstract

Objective: Varicella infection is common in childhood but it is less common in the neonatal period. Varicella infection in pregnancy and neonatal period is clasified as congenital, perinatal and neonatal varicella. Characteristics of patients, routes of transmission and course of the disease were evaluated retrospectively in newborns with neonatal varicella in this study. Methods: Charts of neonates admitted to Dr. Behçet Uz Children’s Hospital between October 2011 and May 2012 with varicella eruption after postnatal ten days were retrospectively reviewed. Results: Thirteen neonates were enrolled in this study. Mean age was 23±5.7 days. Eight patients were female and five patients were male. Mean gestational age was 38.2±1.1 weeks. Seven patients had a history of contact with a person with active varicella infection. Five of them were siblings. Six patients had no contact. Two mothers had varicella eruption after the third day of delivery. All patients had received intravenous acyclovir injections three times a day with a dose of 10 mg/kg for three to five days and after discharge they had taken oral acyclovir with the same dose until the seventh day. One patient with infiltration in chest x-ray and one with infected lesions of varicella had ampicillin-sulbactam in addition to acyclovir. Conclusion: It is important to start acyclovir treatment within twenty four-hours with the first sign of eruption in the patients with a diagnosis of neonatal varicella. Acyclovir in the treatment of neonatal varicella decreases the morbidity and mortality and has a good safety profile. But, larger scale controlled studies are needed.