Yet I Still Think Everything is Going to Be OK

I was sick over this weekend: I had a fever.

In case you are wondering, it is not good to have a fever this early in the pregnancy. Phrases like "neural tube defects" keep popping up at an alarming rate. Nonetheless, I think everything is going to be ok.

First, my fever was less than 102 F. That's apparently the cut-off for "bad things could happen." At its worst, my temperature was hovering around 101.4 for about 12 hours. That is not good. But in some of the medical research I saw, the bad fevers are over 102 and last for at least 24 hours. I'm in the middle group: the not bad fever group, but also not in the no fever group. In this study, the middle group was not statistically different than the no fever group as far as medical outcomes go.

I also found a much, much, much more reassuring study looking at the interaction between early maternal fever and vitamin use. In this study, no vitamins/no fever was the control group. For women who did not take vitamins and did have a fever, the risks that someone could go wrong were pretty high compared to the control group. But for the group who did take vitamins and developed a fever, they did BETTER than the control group on nearly every single outcome. Thus, prenatal vitamins serve as a buffer to the damaging effects of the fever. Considering I have been on pre-nates for 3 years now and have been taking an extra shot of folic acid for the last 8 months, I think I should benefit from this buffer.

Nonetheless, we are in a slightly raised risk because of the fever. Last night, the ob nurse thought the fever was significant enough that she called in a prescription for antibiotics; the fever is coming from a sinus infection.

I feel completely out of it today, due in large part to taking my temperature every hour last night to see how good/bad it was.

But I do think it's going to be ok. I'm trusting my gut on this. With the last 2 m/cs, I was seriously worried when no one else believed that something was wrong. Now, I believe everything is going to be ok.

But I'd really like to catch up on my sleep. Let's hope this fever stays away so I can sleep tonight.