Newborn Dead After Contracting Herpes Virus From Kiss, Mother Warns

The parents of a newborn baby who died after contracting herpes virus likely from a kiss of an infected person warned others of the potential dangers. Abigail Rose Friend, who said her daughter Aliza Rose died just eight days after her May 2018 birth, took to Facebook to share her family's tragedy.

Friend, of Maryland, warned parents they should not allow family and other people to touch and kiss infants due to the risk of contracting an infection, which can sometimes be deadly. The Facebook post was shared more than 300,000 times.

“I’m never going to stop sharing the gut-wrenching, heartbreaking, soul-shattering story of our sweet Aliza Rose,” Friend posted on Facebook. “She was 8 days old when she passed away. She was born a happy healthy almost 9lb[sic] baby. She was healthy for a day and half [SIC] before the HSV-1 virus attached to her spine and ate her lungs and brain.”

The 19-year-old mother claimed Aliza was healthy for the first 36 hours of her life before she developed a fever, became lethargic and lost any interest in food. The newborn quickly deteriorated as the disease "ate her lungs and brain." She struggled to breathe and suffered seizures.

Doctors told Friend her daughter likely caught the infection after being kissed by someone with the virus, which typically causes cold sores or small blisters on the mouth, eye or lips.

According to the New York State Department of Health, about 70 percent of United States adults were infected with HSV-1 and can shed virus in their saliva at any time, even if they don’t show symptoms.

"Aliza was healthy for a day and a half. It took the virus six and a half days to completely destroy her body," Friend said. "Some family and a few close friends came to visit her when she was born. There's no way to ever know who gave it to her because it's such a common virus... It could have been anybody. It could have been a doctor for all I know," she wrote.

The health department stated the virus can be transferred to newborns from close contact with someone who is shedding HSV-1 or has an active outbreak. The department recommended washing hands before touching newborns, and not allowing individuals with cold sores to kiss babies.

“You don’t want something like this to happen,” she said, according to the Sun. “It’s awful. I just want people to be aware that this is a very real threat to children.”

Talking about what her baby went through, Friend wrote: "She was having trouble breathing and they had to put her on oxygen and eventually she was on so many machines and tubes you couldn't even tell she was a baby... I would go in and sit with her for a little bit and I would just sit there and see her on these machines and see them breathing for her and I would throw up."

Aliza was removed from life support on May 20.