Fertility & Pregnancy

A couple’s chances of conceiving will not be affected by genital herpes whether one partner has the virus or they both do.

As with any infection, there is a slight risk herpes can affect your pregnancy or be passed on during birth. The consequences of that can be very serious, but luckily such cases are rare.

Just to put the risk in perspective: even though about 20% of all pregnant women have genital herpes, only around 8 in every 100,000 newborn babies are affected by the virus.

Even though the risk of infecting your baby is small, you can minimise this risk by taking some simple precautions. So it’s very important to speak with your doctor about your herpes if you do become pregnant.