Birth defects occur in 1 in 10 pregnancies with first trimester Zika infection
Analysis of pregnant women helps firm up numbers, timing of virus’s effect on fetuses
By Meghan Rosen
For pregnant women infected with Zika virus in the first trimester, the future is foreboding.
Nearly 11 percent of U.S. women likely exposed to Zika in the early weeks of or just before pregnancy had babies or fetuses with birth defects, researchers report online December 13 in JAMA. The new study offers the first results from the U.S. Zika Pregnancy Registry, which the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and state and local health departments use to track Zika-affected pregnancies.