Zika virus is continuously giving mothers nightmare from pregnancy to the birth baby itself. Mothers experience that pain of not knowing whether their child will be normal or if the virus affected them. And now, there is a new study revealing that pregnant women in Brazil are continuously showing evidence that can connect Zika virus and birth defects.
According to ctvnews.ca, a preliminary report revealed that Zika infection during pregnancy may be directly connected with grave results such as microcephaly (a condition that causes the baby's head to be abnormally small), central nervous system malformations, placental insufficiency with low to no amniotic fluid, fetal growth restriction, potential blindness, and fetal death.
The virus has been making the lives of pregnant women in Brazil harder than it already is. From September 2015 to February of this year, researchers from UCLA at the Fiocruz Institute have already registered 88 women who have developed a rash 5 days prior to registration in Rio de Janeiro. Among the 88 women, 72 or 82 percent tested positive for the Zika Virus either in their blood, urine, or both. Two of them miscarried during their first trimester.
Senior author of the study, Dr. Karin Nielsen, professor of clinical pediatrics in the division of pediatric infectious diseases at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA explained that they have found a strong connection between Zika and harmful pregnancy results which they have never documented before. "We saw problems with the fetus or the pregnancy at eight weeks, 22 weeks, 25 weeks, and we saw problems at 35 weeks. Even if the fetus isn't affected the virus appears to damage the placenta, which can lead to fetal death," she added. She called the link Zika virus congenital syndrome, medicalxpress.com reported.
During a sonogram test, women who were infected with Zika virus involved fetal death at 36 and 38 weeks gestation, in utero growth restriction with or without microcephaly, calcifications in the brain and poor development of brain structures, abnormal amniotic fluid content or abnormal fetal cerebral, umbilical or placental arterial flow
To this day, there have already been eight women who have delivered babies to confirm the findings in their sonogram test. Among those, two infants had died in the third trimester of pregnancy. There were six successful births, however, two were small for gestational age, and one was born with normal birth weight but with severe microcephaly. The infant with severe microcephaly and one with low birth weight also had lesions in their eyes which could indicate blindness. Another infant (fourth) was delivered via an emergency cesarean section because amniotic fluid was absent from the uterus. The baby had immediate complications because of this, but was able to recover and now appears to be healthy. And two were born from mothers with normal ultrasound findings and are now healthy.
