Welkom bij het Lymeforum

But when it comes to the case of an unborn child in the womb, the situation becomes a little more complicated.

This is a controversial area, as many public health authorities in the U.S. claim that there is no risk of the bacteria being transmitted from mother to foetus. However, many Lyme experts have seen repeated evidence that gestational transmission is occurring in a worrying number of cases. Dr. Carsten Nicolaus, the Medical Director of Lyme specialists BCA-clinic in Augsburg, Germany, estimates that the transmission risk could be as high as 20%. However, if a pregnant woman contracts Lyme disease while carrying, that number shoots up to minimum 60%, as the disease is in its bacteria-dominated acute stage. While pregnant women with Lyme are always advised to take antibiotics in order to reduce or eliminate the infection, Dr. Nicolaus recommends that pregnant women avoid transmission to the foetus by undergoing specifically designed treatment protocols. Even with chronic Lyme, the long-term form of the disease, the risk of gestational transmission is ever-present.

The CDC has updated their website today in three different spots to address the very important issue of maternal-fetal transmission of Lyme disease, from an infected mother to her fetus/baby.