Tick secret revealed: Westchester researchers first to prove baby got babesiosis before birth
12:40 AM,
Jul 6, 2012
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Amy Albam, a horticulturist at Cornell University Cooperative Extension in Stony Point, examines adult deer ticks Monday. Albam says this year's deer-tick population appears about average compared with previous years. / Seth Harrison/The Journal News
Written by
Jane Lerner
Adult deer ticks in various stages of engorgement, seen at Cornell Cooperative Extension in Stony Point. / Seth Harrison/The Journal News
How to find ticks
• Bathe or shower as soon as possible after coming indoors (preferably within two hours) to wash off and more easily find ticks that are crawling on you.• Conduct a full-body tick check using a hand-held or full-length mirror to view all parts of your body upon return from tick-infested areas. Parents should check their children for ticks under the arms, in and around the ears, inside the belly button, behind the knees, between the legs, around the waist and especially in their hair.
• Examine gear and pets. Ticks can ride into the home on clothing and pets, then attach to a person later, so carefully examine pets, coats and day packs. Tumble clothes in a dryer on high heat for an hour to kill remaining ticks.
Source: Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
How to remove a tick
1. Use fine-tipped tweezers to grasp the tick as close to the skin’s surface as possible.2. Pull upward with steady, even pressure. Don’t twist or jerk the tick; this can cause the mouth-parts to break off and remain in the skin. If this happens, remove the mouth-parts with tweezers. If you are unable to remove the mouth easily with clean tweezers, leave it alone and let the skin heal.
Source: Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
The finding is important because it gives physicians another cause to investigate when evaluating infants with symptoms that can’t be easily explained.
“Babesiosis shouldn’t be on the top of the list,” said Dr. Gary Wormser, a tick-borne-disease expert at New York Medical College and chief of infectious diseases at Westchester Medical Center. “But it should be on the list — especially in areas like ours where it is becoming increasingly common.”
The finding comes during what is turning out to be a normal tick season despite early indications the mild winter would lead to a bumper tick crop.
In a paper that will be published next month in Emerging Infectious Diseases, a prestigious journal from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, researchers from New York Medical College and Westchester Medical Center describe the case of a 6-week-old Yorktown Heights girl admitted to the hospital with unusual symptoms.
It took a sharp-eyed technician to note babesia parasites, which cause babesiosis, in the baby’s blood sample.
The baby recovered after five days in the hospital during which she was given antibiotics. Physicians chalked up her illness to babesiosis infection contracted before birth. But they never really knew for sure.
Years later, when researchers in Westchester were looking into a rise in the number of babesiosis cases in the Lower Hudson Valley, they re-examined the case. By tracking down samples saved from the placenta as well as blood from the baby and mother, researchers showed that the infant was born with babesiosis, said Wormser.
“The results were definitive,” Wormser said.
There have been four previously cited incidences where doctors suspected a baby had been infected with babesiosis before birth. But the case of the Yorktown Heights child was the first time it was proved.
The disease first was seen in the Lower Hudson Valley in 2001 . The Yorktown Heights girl was born in summer of 2002.
Pregnant women should be especially vigilant about checking themselves for ticks when they have been outdoors, said Dr. Julie T. Joseph, lead author of the paper.
“Babesiosis is an emerging infectious disease in the Hudson Valley,” she said. “Pregnant women should be aware of the risk and should check for ticks.”
Passing the disease on to an unborn baby is possible, but likely doesn’t happen often, she said.
“People shouldn’t panic,” she said.
Two other deer-tick-borne diseases are identified in humans in the region: Lyme disease and human granulocytic anaplasmosis, also known as ehrlichiosis. Lyme disease, the most common tick-borne illness, also can be transmitted from mother to unborn baby, but that, too, is rare, experts said.
Tick experts in the Lower Hudson Valley report seeing the usual number of ticks and tick-related diseases this year.
“Nothing out of the ordinary,” said Amy Albam, senior horticulturist and diagnostic lab educator at Cornell University Cooperative Extension of Rockland County in Stony Point.
Some had theorized the warm winter might encourage an overabundance of ticks. But health experts said that does not appear to be the case.
“I expected the numbers would have risen,” said Tom Daniels, co-director of the Vector Ecology Laboratory at Louis Calder Center in Armonk. “But we’re not seeing it. It’s a bit of a mystery.”
Most people who contract babesiosis don’t even know it. The mother of the baby born with the disease told investigators that she did not recall getting a tick bite and never had any symptoms of a tick-related disease.
It is too early in the season to tally the number of Lyme disease cases, experts said. Checking for ticks remains the best way to prevent getting a tick-borne disease.
