Complications
Often the blisters become inflamed when they are scratched open because of the severe itching and bacteria (bacterial superinfection) can penetrate. The efflorescences (reddening of the skin) then heal with scarring. To provide relief to the children, tinctures can be applied to the affected areas to reduce the itching.
In patients with a weakened immune system, chickenpox infection can lead to a generalized inflammation that affects the entire body and can be fatal in up to 40% of cases. Chickenpox may be accompanied by pneumonia, inflammation of the cerebellum and a drop in the amount of blood platelets in the blood. During pregnancy, the mother transmits protective antibodies to the unborn child if she herself had already contracted chickenpox before pregnancy and is immune to it, or if she has been vaccinated against chickenpox and is therefore immune to the infectious disease.
Women who contract chickenpox in early pregnancy very often lose their baby (=abortion). If the pregnancy is already in the late phase and the child is still suffering from chickenpox in the mother’s abdomen, it can be affected by the typical blister and scarring, but one must also expect malformations (= connatal varicella syndrome). The most common malformations in children are skin scars, skeletal and muscle maldevelopments, changes in the eyes such as cataracts or inflammation of the eyes, and anomalies of the central nervous system.
If the mother falls ill with varicella 7 days before or 2 days after birth, the children are also affected by the infectious disease (=connatal varicella) in the first 10-12 days of life, because the mother could not transfer a (sufficient) amount of protective antibodies to her child. The severity of the disease varies greatly: It is possible that the child will experience a mild chickenpox disease with few blisters, but it can also lead to a severe disease with involvement of the lungs in the form of pneumonia.If young people or adults contract chickenpox, the infection is usually more severe and more complicated than in children: The older patients often have higher fever, the skin rash is more pronounced and the disease lasts longer overall than in children. About 20% of adult patients develop pneumonia as a complication.
