Cytomegalovirus Shedding Characteristics in Pregnant Women

The cCHIPS study is a feasibility study for larger scale multi-centre studies and is designed as a single-centre observational cohort, longitudinal, natural history study. The overarching aim of this study is to evaluate the feasibility of performing larger scale, multi-centre studies to evaluate the relationship between CMV shedding in pregnancy with congenital CMV (cCMV). There is no randomisation involved in this study and all participants will perform the same study procedures and receive treatment as usual. The primary (main) objective is to evaluate the prevalence (percentage of occurrence) of CMV shedding in saliva, urine and vaginal secretions of CMV seropositive women throughout pregnancy. The secondary objectives are to evaluate the quantity of CMV shedding in saliva, urine and vaginal secretions of CMV seropositive women throughout pregnancy, to compare the prevalence and quantity of CMV shedding in CMV seropositive women between different sources of shedding (saliva, urine or vaginal secretions) and different gestational stages, to identify risk factors for CMV shedding in CMV seropositive pregnant women, to evaluate the acceptability of the study procedures to the participating pregnant women, to evaluate the proportion of women approached who are recruited into the study and who are completing the study, and to evaluate the relationship between CMV specific cell mediated immunity (a type of immune protection following exposure to CMV) and CMV shedding in CMV seropositive pregnant women. The tertiary objective is to compare the evaluation of CMV specific T cell immune responses (a type of CMV specific cell mediated immunity) between the two commercially available CMV-specific T cell immune response assays which are QuantiFERON-CMV and CMV-ELISPOT assays. This study will aim to recruit 200 pregnant women. This study will be undertaken in parallel with a separate study called RACE-FIT (REC reference number 18/SC/0360, IRAS ID 239977), which will hav