Day-Care Workers Run Virus Risk

Women who work in day-care centers apparently face a five-fold risk of contracting cytomegalovirus, a contagious infection that can cause severe retardation in a fetus whose mother has contracted the disease. Dr. Stuart P. Adler of the Children’s Medical Center in Richmond, Va., said results of his tests on 610 workers showed that CMV is frequently passed to adults by children, especially children less than 2 years old.

The infection is often spread by the intimate contact of diaper changing, feeding, bathing and other tasks that bring the baby into close contact with the worker.

Adler found in his study of 34 day-care centers in the Richmond area that workers who cared for babies and 1-year-olds were most likely to have been exposed to the virus.

Adler, writing in the current New England Journal of Medicine, said the results strongly suggest a significant occupational risk for the acquisition of CMV and said it might be best that day-care workers of childbearing age who have never had CMV not care for children during the first half of the pregnancy.