Doctors at a District of Columbia hospital are concerned about how health workers monitor pregnant women who have been infected with Zika, saying that these women can have a false sense of security for weeks before some tests show any sign of brain damage to a fetus that might influence their decision to have an abortion.
The hospital, Children’s National Medical Center, treated a 33-year-old woman who had apparently normal ultrasounds until 19 weeks into her pregnancy, even though doctors found when testing her blood that the virus lingered for 10 weeks after she was initially infected. The woman chose to have an abortion at 21 weeks, when doctors gave her a prognosis indicating that the fetus had developed severe brain damage.
Ultrasounds conducted at 13, 16 and 17 weeks showed no signs of possible microcephaly or other issues with brain development, but blood tests showed fragments of Zika in the woman’s blood. Doctors did not detect severe abnormalities in the fetus’ brain until the 19-week ultrasound, a time frame that is significant for a fetal brain because it grows larger and more complex. Portions of the brain were thin and its growth was not keeping up with the pace of the skull’s growth. Still, doctors did not make an official diagnosis of microcephaly because the fetus’ head circumference was not small enough to meet the threshold – even though the fetus’ brain weighed 30 grams after the abortion, less than a typical size, which is 49 grams.
An MRI conducted during the 20th week showed that the portion of the brain that controls decision making, as well as the portion that detects vision, hearing and touch, were wasting away. The day the woman had the abortion, 21 weeks into the pregnancy, she still tested positive for Zika after the procedure, but 11 days later, her blood, urine and saliva tested negative. High concentrations of the virus were found in the aborted remains, including in the brain umbilical cord and placenta, and smaller concentrations were found in the muscle, lung, spleen and amniotic fluid. The virus found in the brain remained infectious when it was tested.
Click here to read more about this unsettling discovery about detecting the affect of the Zika virus on developing fetus.
