Laura Sweet had no idea that she had contracted a virus that would leave her daughter, Jane, deaf by her first birthday.
During her second pregnancy, doctors had warned her against alcohol and changing kitty litter. They had said to avoid sushi and cold cuts. But nobody — not her obstetrician, nor her midwife — mentioned cytomegalovirus.
Only after a frustrating search lasting months did doctors discover that the girl had been infected in utero. The infection and the emotional ordeal that followed, she thinks, could have been prevented — for the Sweet family and thousands of others every year.
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