A baby born in New Jersey with birth defects caused by the Zika virus was delivered early on purpose by Caesarian section, doctors said Wednesday.
Doctors at Hackensack University Medical Center
said they decided to deliver the baby surgically after an ultrasound
last week showed there were serious birth defects, including
microcephaly. The baby, a girl, was delivered Tuesday.
A baby was born with microchephaly at Hackensack Medical Center, New Jersey. Hackensack Medical Center
The 31-year-old mother had traveled from
Honduras to stay with relatives and get medical care after she suspected
something might be wrong with her pregnancy, the doctors told a news
conference.
"She is trying her best to cope with this
emotionally," Dr. Abdulla Al-Khan, section chief for Maternal Fetal
Medicine and Surgery at Hackensack, told the news conference.
Zika virus infection is known to cause a range
of serious birth defects. The virus can get through the placenta and
into a developing fetus, where it then seems to home in on developing
brain cells.
The most obvious effect is microcephaly, a
smaller-than-normal head that's caused when large sections of brain are
destroyed. Zika also causes other brain and neurological damage to the
babies at affects. It can cause miscarriages or stillbirths as well as
vision and hearing problems. Related: Your Questions About Pregnancy, Sex and Zika
Experts expect subtler birth defects will become obvious as babies get older.
Honduras is one of more than 40 countries being
swept by the Zika virus in recent months. The virus is carried by Aedes
aegypti and Aedes albopictus mosquitoes — common in tropical and
sub-tropical regions. It's also transmitted sexually.
The baby girl was delivered at 35 weeks — a
month early — so she's being fed intravenously and is being kept at the
hospital for care.
Brazil has by far the most microcephaly cases
linked to Zika, but health officials expect more in all the countries
being hit by the virus. It's not clear what percentage of pregnancies
are affected and whether a mother has to have symptoms for the baby to
be affected. Related: Zika Birth Defects May be Tip of the Iceberg
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and World Health Organization both caution pregnant women
to stay out of Zika affected areas if they can. Women who cannot avoid
them are advised to use insect repellents such as DEET, to cover up to
protect themselves from bites and to stay indoors in air conditioning if
at all possible.
They also advise that pregnant women or women
who may become pregnant avoid unprotected sex and that men who might be
infected avoid having unprotected sex with their partners.
But many of the people in the Zika-affected
regions have no access to such protective measures. In many of the
heavily Catholic countries affected in Latin America, birth control may
be frowned on and difficult to get. Related: CDC Reports 279 Pregnant Women With Zika in U.S.
U.S. health officials say they expect more cases
to turn up in the United States. More than 40 million people travel to
and from Latin America and the Caribbean and U.S. territories such as
Puerto Rico are having their own Zika epidemics.
"We now have in the United States, close to 600
travel related cases, and there are also a considerable number of women
... close to 160 pregnant women who have gotten infected. It just
underscores the importance of trying to protect pregnant women," Dr.
Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and
Infectious Diseases, told NBC News.
There will also almost certainly be local outbreaks in the U.S., the CDC predicts, but not epidemics.
Southern states have the mosquitoes that can spread Zika, and the insects circulate as far north as New York in the summer.
Just this week, Texas reported its first locally
acquired case of chikungunya, a virus closely related to Zika that's
spread by the same mosquitoes.
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