Revisión de Hepatitis B Crónica en el Embarazo

Abstract

Hepatitis B virus is a double chain DNA virus, and infection is usually silent, asymptomatic and can be transmitted to other people in the same way. It´s chronic infection affects more than 350 million people in the World. Mother to child transmission is the first cause of transmission, specially at the time of birth and if the viral load is high. Therefore, screening every pregnant woman in their first prenatal visit, with HBsAg serology should be encouraged, in order to make an early diagnosis and prevent its chronic consequences like chronic hepatitis, cirrhosis, hepatic failure and hepatocellular carcinoma, which have a higher incidence if the infection occurs at birth.

This Infection requires specialized management during and after pregnancy, especially because treating pregnant women who have high viral loads with antivirals reduces significantly vertical transmission. Nowadays, tenofovir is the first line treatment instead of lamivudine, because lamivudine has presented high resistance rates. It is also recommended that all newborns from mothers with chronic hepatitis B should receive immunoglobulins and the first dose of the hepatitis B vaccine in the first 12 hours birth and breastfeeding is not contraindicated.