Zika Infection Late In Pregnancy Reveal Little Risk Of Microcephaly

http://ifttt.com/images/no_image_card.png

This was the news recently after months of painstaking research by scientists in Colombia who has been tracking the conditions of thousands of pregnant women in their study about the extent of effects of the dreaded Zika virus among pregnant women and offspring.

Very little risk of microcephaly among babies

This is a big break into the study of the disease, for which the report was published very recently in The New England Journal of Medicine, where researchers found that zika infections that were contracted during the third trimester of the pregnancy did not cause any severe birth defects like microcephaly which was linked early on as an effect of a zika infection among pregnant women.

Some 600 pregnant women were monitored as part of the study and were reportedly infected with zika during the third trimester, where it was found that none of them gave birth to a baby diagnosed with microcephaly or any brain abnormality.

“I think it’s somewhat reassuring that there were not major birth defects identified,” an epidemiologist with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Dr. Margaret Honein,  who helped lead the study said. “But I want to make sure we understand there is still a lot that we need to know.”

Although researchers claimed that it is still unclear to them whether zika poses a risk in late pregnancy for possible miscarriages, stillbirths or other medical complications.

Zika Virus infection in Rio de Janeiro

Another related study conducted previously came out with a report about two pregnant women where one of the fetus showed indications of restricted growth whole it the child was still in the uterus and the other one succumbed to still birth.

Dr. Catherine Spong, the acting director of the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development said that it may still be too early to tell about the impacts of Zika on the babies that were born, since there could still be a possibility that it may have certain impacts later on in life or even during the early years of the child,

Dr. Spong pointed out this possibility gleaning from conditions like influenza during pregnancy has been found to increase the risk of long term issues like schizophrenia later in life.

The experts, however, agree that prevention is still a primary consideration by avoiding travel in places where Zika has been found to be common other than just focusing on the little risk of microcephaly and instead consider all other possible effects it may have on health.

Image Credit: Zika Infection Late In Pregnancy Carries Little Risk of Microcephaly – NPR 

The post Zika Infection Late In Pregnancy Reveal Little Risk Of Microcephaly appeared first on NUTRITION CLUB CANADA.