Logo

Log In Sign Up |  An official publication of: American College of Emergency Physicians
Navigation
  • Home
  • Multimedia
    • Podcasts
    • Videos
  • Clinical
    • Airway Managment
    • Case Reports
    • Critical Care
    • Guidelines
    • Imaging & Ultrasound
    • Pain & Palliative Care
    • Pediatrics
    • Resuscitation
    • Trauma & Injury
  • Resource Centers
    • mTBI Resource Center
  • Career
    • Practice Management
      • Benchmarking
      • Reimbursement & Coding
      • Care Team
      • Legal
      • Operations
      • Quality & Safety
    • Awards
    • Certification
    • Compensation
    • Early Career
    • Education
    • Leadership
    • Profiles
    • Retirement
    • Work-Life Balance
  • Columns
    • ACEP4U
    • Airway
    • Benchmarking
    • Brief19
    • By the Numbers
    • Coding Wizard
    • EM Cases
    • End of the Rainbow
    • Equity Equation
    • FACEPs in the Crowd
    • Forensic Facts
    • From the College
    • Images in EM
    • Kids Korner
    • Medicolegal Mind
    • Opinion
      • Break Room
      • New Spin
      • Pro-Con
    • Pearls From EM Literature
    • Policy Rx
    • Practice Changers
    • Problem Solvers
    • Residency Spotlight
    • Resident Voice
    • Skeptics’ Guide to Emergency Medicine
    • Sound Advice
    • Special OPs
    • Toxicology Q&A
    • WorldTravelERs
  • Resources
    • ACEP.org
    • ACEP Knowledge Quiz
    • Issue Archives
    • CME Now
    • Annual Scientific Assembly
      • ACEP14
      • ACEP15
      • ACEP16
      • ACEP17
      • ACEP18
      • ACEP19
    • Annals of Emergency Medicine
    • JACEP Open
    • Emergency Medicine Foundation
  • About
    • Our Mission
    • Medical Editor in Chief
    • Editorial Advisory Board
    • Awards
    • Authors
    • Article Submission
    • Contact Us
    • Advertise
    • Subscribe
    • Privacy Policy
    • Copyright Information

No Birth Defects Seen in Babies Exposed to Zika Late in Pregnancy: Study

By Julie Steenhuysen (Reuters) | on July 8, 2016 | 0 Comment
Uncategorized
  • Tweet
  • Click to email a link to a friend (Opens in new window) Email
Print-Friendly Version

A study of Zika infections in Colombia has found no obvious birth defects among women infected during the third trimester of pregnancy, raising hopes that Zika may not cause serious harm to the fetus when mothers are infected later in pregnancy.

You Might Also Like
  • More U.S. Babies with Zika-Related Birth Defects Reported by Health Agency
  • Zika Caused 20-fold Spike in Birth Defects: US Study
  • CDC, Brazil to Study Zika’s Link to Birth Defects

“It’s somewhat reassuring that it looks like third-trimester infections aren’t posing a major risk of that very serious outcome,” said Dr. Margaret Honein, chief of the birth defects branch at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, who was one of several authors of the study published online in the New England Journal of Medicine.

She stressed that the findings are preliminary, saying “it is critically important” to continue following these babies to look for other effects from exposure to Zika, such as hearing loss or vision problems, or any other developmental problems.

The mosquito-borne Zika virus has been shown to attack fetal brain cells and cause microcephaly.

In Brazil, authorities have confirmed more than 1,400 cases of microcephaly in babies whose mothers were exposed to Zika during pregnancy. Researchers have been closely watching for the same issues among infants in Colombia. The virus arrived in Colombia in October 2015, about five months after the start of Brazil’s outbreak.

The Colombian study involved data on 65,726 Zika cases reported between August 2015 and April 2016. These included 1,850 pregnant women in which the researchers knew the trimester in which the mother became infected.

Of the 600 women infected during their third trimester, 90% have delivered their babies, and none gave birth to a child with microcephaly or other obvious birth defects.

As of early April, most pregnancies in which women were infected in the first or second trimester were still ongoing, but some of those mothers have started to give birth. In these women, Honein said, there have been “a growing number” of problems.

“I think the numbers are going to come up,” said Honein, who expects increasing reports of microcephaly, brain anomalies and other birth defects among women infected with Zika earlier in their pregnancies.

CDC investigators are working with their Colombian colleagues to determine which cases are due to Zika and which are due to another cause.

Topics: Birth DefectsBrazilCDCColombiaInfectious DiseaseMicrocephalyPregnancyThird-TrimesterZika

Related

  • The Critical Role of Accurate Traumatic Brain Injury Coding

    June 30, 2025 - 0 Comment
  • New Recommendations for Administering RhD IG at Less than 12 Weeks

    May 7, 2025 - 0 Comment
  • How to Diagnose and Manage Hypertensive Disorders in Pregnancy

    March 10, 2025 - 0 Comment

Current Issue

ACEP Now: July 2025

Download PDF

Read More

No Responses to “No Birth Defects Seen in Babies Exposed to Zika Late in Pregnancy: Study”

Leave a Reply Cancel Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *


*
*


Current Issue

ACEP Now: July 2025

Download PDF

Read More

Wiley
  • Home
  • About Us
  • Contact Us
  • Privacy
  • Terms of Use
  • Advertise
  • Cookie Preferences
Copyright © 2025 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc. All rights reserved, including rights for text and data mining and training of artificial technologies or similar technologies. ISSN 2333-2603