The Journal of the American Medical Association has published a study on the effects of herpes in pregnant women that has proved that the anti-viral treatments have no relationship between birth defects and mothers being treated for herpes in their first trimester.
More than one in five pregnant women have herpes simplex antibodies in her blood but they can be rest assured and safely take herpes treatment such as aciclovir, valacyclovir or famciclovir to treat any symptomatic episodes.
The authors of the study state that aciclovir is the most researched of the anti-viral drugs and that this study represents the largest of its kind, thus they feel confident to state that aciclovir is the safest to take at this stage of pregnancy. 837,795 live babies participated in this study from January 1996 to September 2008. There were no known genetic syndromes or birth defect syndromes reported among the participants from the outset and information about the dispensing of antiviral drugs was obtained from local registries.
Out of 1,804 pregnancies where the antiviral drugs were in use in the first trimester, 2.2% experienced problems with birth defects compared to 2.4% of 835,991 birth defects in pregnancies that were not exposed to the drugs.
Once you catch the herpes virus, there is no real cure but after the first major episode, the severity tends to decline in future episodes. Antiviral drugs will stop the pain and help inhibit the spreading of the virus.