Shingles Virus During Pregnancy: One Woman’s Story

When Ashley McAtee, 37, was pregnant with her first child in 2019, she developed a painful rash on her torso at the end of her second trimester. The possibility that it was shingles never crossed her mind. After all, she’d always heard it was an illness that mainly impacted older people—and there were so many other ways she could have irritated her skin. The surprising diagnosis taught the entrepreneur and Bravo Summer House alum some important lessons about listening to her body and slowing down. Here’s her story, as told to health writer Amy Marturana Winderl.

When I was about 27 weeks pregnant with my first baby, my husband and I went on a babymoon to Hawaii. My company, Uptown Cheapskate Carlsbad, was still in its early days. Building a business was really stressful and came with a lot of growing pains. I hadn’t been able to take off as often as I would have liked, but I was like, Okay, I’m pregnant; I need to go on vacation. I’m only fully relaxed when I take a trip, and I needed to unwind. So we went to Maui.

The second day we were there, I woke up with a small rash on my belly. At first it wasn’t all that painful; it was mostly just uncomfortable and felt kind of weird—I’m not sure how else to describe it. Honestly, initially I was like, Do we have bed bugs? That seemed unlikely because we were at a very nice hotel, but I couldn’t figure out what the problem was. Shingles didn’t ever cross my mind. I remember thinking that so many random things could have triggered a reaction: the new climate, the long flight, the pool. So I ignored it and went about my day.

The following morning the rash was bigger, and I told my husband it was scaring me a bit. I ended up calling my ob-gyn’s office and explaining what was happening. The nurse I spoke with said it sounded like I might have a heat rash, which made sense given where I was. At first the conversation soothed me, but the rash kept getting bigger, and the pain worsened. I called my doctor’s office back the next day and was like, “Something’s not right.” I had heard of pruritic urticarial papules and plaques of pregnancy (PUPPP), a hive-like rash that some people get when they’re expecting and thought maybe that was what I had. Since heat rash and PUPPP were the most likely culprits based on how I described my symptoms, the nurse suggested I try hydrocortisone cream to see if it would help. (Spoiler: It didn’t.) I convinced myself it wasn’t a big deal and just pushed past the discomfort.

However, over the next couple of days, the rash spread across my abdomen and back. I called my mom a few times; as a mother of six, she has seen it all, so she was also trying to help me figure out the problem. By day five or so, I started feeling horribly uncomfortable. The rash hurt so much I couldn’t sleep. I called my mom again in a bit of a panic, and that’s when she said, “Ashley, I think you have shingles.” And I was like, “What the heck? There’s no way! That doesn’t even make sense.” We were leaving the next day, so I decided to wait and see a doctor once we returned to California. Looking back I wish I’d listened to my gut and gone to urgent care in Hawaii so I could have gotten a diagnosis and started treatment sooner.

Once our flight landed I told my husband to drive straight to the hospital. I was extremely uncomfortable, and it was making me nervous. By this point the lesions looked like raw, open wounds. It was very, very painful. I also started to experience flu-like symptoms. Within minutes of the hospital staff examining me, they said I had shingles. Because I was pregnant and had been experiencing symptoms for a week at this point, they said they wanted to start me on IV antiviral medication and keep me overnight for monitoring. I’d waited so long to seek help that there was a risk the treatment wouldn’t be effective at speeding up my recovery. They also offered me medication to manage the discomfort.

After returning from my babymoon, I was admitted to the hospital to get treatment for shingles.

At first I didn’t want to take anything. I was pregnant for the first time, and I was very cautious about what I was putting into my body. But I do remember the doctor said, “It’s not worth putting this type of stress on your baby. You really need to take a little something.” So I did eventually start the antiviral and a low dose of pain relief meds.

I had to stay at the hospital that one night, but after that I was stuck at home for two weeks. I’m not typically a homebody, but my energy levels were really low—I felt like I had the flu on top of the pain of the rash. I was also pretty pregnant at this point, so I already felt exhausted at all hours of the day. To make matters worse, the shingles symptoms made sleeping even harder, so it was a tough few weeks.

One of the scariest things was wondering if the infection was going to affect my baby. Thankfully the doctors, along with the other members of my care team, were all very reassuring that he would be okay. I was monitored more closely for the rest of my pregnancy to make sure everything went smoothly, and luckily it remained perfectly fine. My son was born at 39 weeks and six days.

Looking back, the whole experience was a really big wake-up call for me. It was my body’s way of telling me I needed to slow down. Shingles is caused by the varicella-zoster virus (VZV), which also causes chicken pox; once you get chicken pox, the virus stays dormant in your body. Various triggers—usually some sort of stress, trauma, or illness—can nudge it out of hibernation, causing shingles. I didn’t feel overly stressed right before I got sick, but I was clearly dealing with all of the unknowns surrounding having my first baby, including what motherhood would be like and how I was going to juggle that with running my business. But it was not until I was recovering from shingles that I thought for the first time, My company will be okay without me being there every day.

I’m a type-A person who feels like I have to be in charge of everything, and having shingles helped me realize that I needed to release some of that control. It also forced me to take a step back and trust the people I’d hired for my business. After my illness I decided to prioritize being more intentional and mindful. I started going on walks in the morning and not rushing straight to work to keep my stress levels down. This was an important lesson to learn before my baby arrived because while you can control the things you do with your baby, you can’t fully control a baby. So as much as I hope to never get shingles again, it was really good for teaching me that I have to let go in all aspects of my life and trust that things will happen as they should.

Editor’s note: If you’ve had chicken pox, you can get shingles at any age, although your risk increases significantly if you’re immunocompromised or over the age of 50. If you’ve never had chicken pox or the chicken pox vaccine, you can get chicken pox from someone who has shingles. If you’re concerned about your risk factors, ask your doctor if getting a shingles vaccine may be right for you.

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