[Clinical management of genital herpes: what can be done in pregnancy?].

Neonatal herpes infection is the major complication of genital herpes even if it occurs in less than 1/10,000 births. A great number of recent studies illustrates the natural history of genital herpes. The importance of viral transmission by asymptomatic shedding is now well established. The widespread use of viral diagnosis strategies is the prerequisite to efficient genital herpes prevention in order to eradicate viral mother-to-child transmission. This starts with the detection of at-risk situations such as primary infection in late pregnancy. Once the at-risk situation is known there should be concern about the adaptation of treatment strategies including antiviral therapy. The following work proposes different strategies facing each at-risk situation in order to discuss the efficiency of new diagnostic and treatment tools.