[music] most pregnant women, when they become infected withzika virus have no symptoms. about four out of every fivewomen that are infected will never know they're infected, onein five may develop some fever, a rash, red eyes, joint pain. the problem what we'vediscovered in pregnant women is that the virus can actuallycross the placenta and infect their baby.
so, the babies, depending onwhen the woman gets infected, may end up developingmicrocephaly, which is a very small head, and the brain development mayactually be very abnormal. it does, like a lot of virusesthat end up affecting pregnant women, the earlier on inpregnancy that they become infected the more likely tohave obvious abnormalities in the fetus, because that's thetime where the fetus is doing the most of its development.
we do believepregnant women are at risk throughout the pregnancy. we know that infections thathave crossed the placenta and actually affected the babiescan occur at any time in the pregnancy, it just depends on when inpregnancy they are infected as to what the effects are thatwe're going to see. right now we know that zikavirus will cross the placenta and may affect a baby.
the problem is we have so limited data that we don't knowhow many women will actually infect their baby if theythemselves become infected. what the centers for diseasecontrol and prevention, or the cdc, have come out as sayingis that if you bear infected, either in a previouspregnancy or long before you become pregnant, we don't think there will be aneffect on the current pregnancy. i do believe theyshould avoid travel,
if at all possible untilwe know more about how this virus affectsall pregnant women. the center for disease controland prevention, american college of obgyn, society ofmaternal fetal medicine are all recommending that pregnant womenlimit travel to affected areas. if you are pregnant, andyou have traveled to a zika affected area, immediatelynotify your obstetrician. because there are guidelinesout there right now, put out by the cdc, by the american collegeof obstetrics and gynecology and
the society for maternal fetal medicine thathave all come together and developed guidelines for howthe obstetrician should evaluate you, should evaluate the baby,and do all the testing. we know how long the virustakes to infect a person. we think we know how long thevirus stays in a pregnant woman, though we're still tryingto make sure that number is correct. it can be transmitted sexually.
there have been several casesreported in the literature that have discussed male tofemale transmission. if your partner has traveled andyou have not, and you're pregnant,what we are recommending is abstaining fromsexual intercourse. if you do havesexual intercourse, make sure you're using condoms,consistently and correctly. if you are pregnant, andyou do have unprotected sexual intercourse, make sure younotify your obstetrician,
because they may needto do an evaluation.
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