Noah was just four weeks old when his mother noticed that something wasn’t right.
Ashleigh White, from Barnsley, watched as her baby’s eye began to swell and become covered in scabs. A few days later, blisters appeared. She took him to the doctor and he was referred straight to hospital. At first, no one there mentioned neonatal herpes. But weeks earlier, she had seen a Facebook post warning about HSV-1, the cold sore virus, and she refused to stay quiet. She insisted that was what her son had.
She was right. “I managed to catch it in time before it spread all over his body and started affecting all his vital organs”, she told BBC Radio 5 Live Breakfast. The virus was around his eye, and they feared Noah would be left blind. He was transferred to Sheffield Children’s Hospital, where he received two weeks of antiviral treatment and another six months of preventative treatment. In total, he spent about two and a half months in hospital.
Neonatal herpes is uncommon, affecting around 10 in every 100.000 births according to the WHO, but it can cause permanent neurological disability or death. Ashleigh shared her story on Facebook, where it was shared more than 10.000 times.