Greetings Customer (name blocked for privacy),
Your question boils down as to whether you are contagious to your wife or newborn baby, as I understand it. Also, I think you are also asking whether you are infectious to other people in the hospital and on the maternity ward. Correct me if I am wrong.
Regarding the contagiousness of shingles, it is not possible to spread shingles, itself, to another person. Since shingles is a delayed re-eruption of the chickenpox virus, babies, children, and adults who have never had chickenpox and who have never been vaccinated against chickenpox may develop it after direct skin contact with a shingles vesicle (blister) on your body. There is also evidence of spreading chickenpox through the air via aerosolised droplets from individuals with very widespread shingles.
If you have active blisters, avoid direct skin to skin contact with other individuals, wear a couple layers of clothing to cover the area well, and wash your hands and exposed skin areas thoroughly for safe measure.
http://www.ninds.nih.gov/disorders/shingles/detail_shingles.htm ... provides a great deal of additional information for you.
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