A nurse and her husband sat quietly crying in an Iowa House balcony last week as a bill inspired by their daughter cleared its final legislative hurdle. Amanda Devereaux of Des Moines contracted a virus known by the initials C-M-V when she was pregnant. As a result, her 18-month-old daughter, Pippa, cannot walk, talk or feed herself and is undergoing physical therapy.

“She’s moderately affected actually,” Devereaux says. “There’s kind of a spectrum with CMV. There’s kids that are born with the virus and never have a single symptom. There’s kids that maybe have just one symptom and then there’s kids that are very severely impacted, all the way up to dying from the virus.” A bill that has cleared the Iowa House AND Senate unanimously would require hearing tests for newborns, since hearing loss is an indicator a baby may have contracted C-M-V in the womb.

In addition, the state will provide doctors with information to pass along to pregnant women about the dangers of C-M-V. It’s a common virus. By the age of five, about one-in-three kids have had it.  “If I had known when I was pregnant that I could catch something from my toddler that would harm my unborn children, I think I would have done things differently,” she says, “but I just had no idea.” Devereaux caught C-M-V from her toddler, who was in day care.

“I would kiss him on the lips. I would share drinks with him,” Devereaux says. “I didn’t really realize that I could actually do my second child so much harm just by doing things that families do.” And Devereaux hopes by telling her story — AND having this bill become law — more pregnant women with toddlers will take precautions to avoid catching C-M-V. “I’m a nurse,” Devereaux says. “I know a lot of things about staying healthy and I didn’t know about this.”

According to the National C-M-V Foundation, only nine percent of pregnant women know about the virus. Each year, about 40-thousand babies in the U.S. are infected with C-M-V before birth. Experts say women who’ve had the virus BEFORE they’re pregnant aren’t at risk of passing it along to their babies.

However, if a woman contracts it for the first time during the first trimester of a pregnancy, that’s when the brain and other major organs are developing. That’s when the virus can cause devastating abnormalities.

(Radio Iowa)