Varicella pneumonia during pregnancy.

Varicella pneumonia during pregnancy may be relatively mild or rapidly fatal. Diagnosis is based on the usual criteria for varicella in association with signs and symptoms of respiratory distress: dyspnea, tachypnea, cough, chest pain, and hemoptysis, with characteristic x-ray findings. Treatment should be directed toward maintaining blood oxygen saturation at as near normal as possible (monitored by serial blood gas determinations). The occurrence of congenital varicella is unpredictable, but an infant born within four days of the mother's development of the varicella skin rash is at high risk, with the outcome being fatal in five percent of cases.