Eight months pregnant, Mara Torres stands alongside a mosquito net placed over her bed in Cali, Colombia. Healthiness officials in Cali have actually delivered mosquito nets to pregnant women to suggestions protect them from the bites of mosquitoes that can easily transmit dengue, chikungunya or Zika. Luis Robayo /AFP/Getty Images hide caption
toggle caption Luis Robayo /AFP/Getty Images
Eight months pregnant, Mara Torres stands alongside a mosquito net placed over her bed in Cali, Colombia. Healthiness officials in Cali have actually delivered mosquito nets to pregnant women to suggestions protect them from the bites of mosquitoes that can easily transmit dengue, chikungunya or Zika.
Luis Robayo /AFP/Getty Images
For months, scientists in Colombia have actually been functioning on a massive study.
They’ve been tracking the Healthiness of thousands of pregnant women to attempt to determine vital questions bordering the Zika virus.
Now the group has actually published its initial severe findings, and they provide a glimmer of great news.
Zika infections throughout the 3rd trimester don’t appear to create major birth defects, such as microcephaly, the scientists and their worldwide colleagues report Wednesday in The brand-new England Diary of Medicine.
In just what they’re calling a “preliminary report” from their bigger study, the researchers tracked the pregnancies of nearly 600 women that were reportedly infected along with Zika throughout their 3rd trimester, as suggested by the timing of their symptoms.
None of the 600 women gave birth to a baby along with microcephaly or others brain abnormalities.
“I believe it’s somewhat reassuring that there were not severe birth defects identified,” says Dr. Margaret Honein, an epidemiologist along with the Centers for Health problem Regulate and Prevention, that helped lead the study. “However I hope to guarantee we know there is still considerably that we have to know.”
For example, it’s still unclear whether Zika infections late in pregnancy enhance the risk for others complications, such as miscarriages or stillbirths. A small study published in February suggested this could be the case.
In that study, two women caught Zika in the 3rd trimester. In one case, the woman had a stillbirth and in the other, the fetus showed symptoms of growth restriction inside the uterus.
Researchers have actually additionally linked Zika to neurological problems, such as abnormalities in vision and hearing. So Honein and her colleagues are tracking the babies in the most up to date study for at the very least a year, to see whether any type of complications develop.
Scientists studying others infections contracted throughout pregnancy have actually turned up associations along with complications that make later in life, says Dr. Catherine Spong, the acting director of the National Institute of Youngster Healthiness and Human Development, that was not involved in the Colombia study.
“also just having influenza throughout pregnancy raises the risk of lifelong issues, such as a better fee of schizophrenia later in life,” Spong says.
So it could be years prior to we understand the complete impact Zika has actually on babies — also as soon as an infection happens throughout the 3rd trimester.
“We don’t have actually the complete picture for exactly how Zika impacts pregnancy,” Spong says, especially as soon as it pertains to asymptomatic infections.
“among the difficulties of attempting to really know Zika is that the majority of studies that we have actually are along with symptomatic women,” Spong says. However up to 80 percent of people that Get hold of infected along with Zika don’t also understand it.
Until we have actually much more information, the two Spong and Honein agree, the suggestions for pregnant women are the same: Don’t travel to areas where Zika is circulating. And if you have actually to, do every little thing you can easily to not Get hold of bitten by mosquitoes.
“It is critically crucial to protect pregnant women from this infection throughout their pregnancy,” Honein says.
