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Zika - A Californian is the latest in a string of pregnant women potentially exposed to the tropical virus - tests negative
"Babymoon" Turns into Zika Nightmare
A Californian is the latest in a string of pregnant women potentially exposed to the tropical virus
By Dina Fine Maron on January 20, 2016
Twenty-one weeks into her pregnancy Brook Meakins and her husband started to regret their "babymoon"?a vacation celebrating just the two of them before their burgeoning family grew to three. Right before Christmas they had left for a luxurious trip to Bora Bora that they had planned well in advance. From there they went to Easter Island for another week and then decided to swing back through Bora Bora for a few more days.
But last week their nightmare began. They spent Martin Luther King Day at the emergency room back in California, where doctors gave Meakins a battery of tests for her rash and achy joints. Just days earlier the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention had issued its first-ever warning for pregnant women and Zika disease?advising expectant mothers to avoid 13 countries and Puerto Rico where the mosquito-borne virus was rapidly spreading. The list of spots to avoid did not include French Polynesia, but Zika has been known to surface there in the past and her doctors had said there was cause for concern. Although Meakins tried to avoid getting bitten?thinking of other mosquito-borne threats because Zika was not even on their radar?she did receive about a dozen bug bites on their trip, particularly in Bora Bora. ?I have thought many times these past few days about how none of this would have happened if we had just canceled the trip,? Meakins says.
...
At the hospital on MLK Day, Meakins gave a blood sample that will be sent to the CDC for further testing. She says she was told not to expect the results for four to 14 days. The wait, unsurprisingly, is agonizing. ?We are balls of worry right now, although we are trying to stay positive, love each other through and stay on top of the research as it comes in,? she says. Their fetus was the product of in vitro fertilization and so ?he was a little miracle already,? she says.
...
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/babymoon-turns-into-zika-nightmare/
"Babymoon" Turns into Zika Nightmare
A Californian is the latest in a string of pregnant women potentially exposed to the tropical virus
By Dina Fine Maron on January 20, 2016
Twenty-one weeks into her pregnancy Brook Meakins and her husband started to regret their "babymoon"?a vacation celebrating just the two of them before their burgeoning family grew to three. Right before Christmas they had left for a luxurious trip to Bora Bora that they had planned well in advance. From there they went to Easter Island for another week and then decided to swing back through Bora Bora for a few more days.
But last week their nightmare began. They spent Martin Luther King Day at the emergency room back in California, where doctors gave Meakins a battery of tests for her rash and achy joints. Just days earlier the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention had issued its first-ever warning for pregnant women and Zika disease?advising expectant mothers to avoid 13 countries and Puerto Rico where the mosquito-borne virus was rapidly spreading. The list of spots to avoid did not include French Polynesia, but Zika has been known to surface there in the past and her doctors had said there was cause for concern. Although Meakins tried to avoid getting bitten?thinking of other mosquito-borne threats because Zika was not even on their radar?she did receive about a dozen bug bites on their trip, particularly in Bora Bora. ?I have thought many times these past few days about how none of this would have happened if we had just canceled the trip,? Meakins says.
...
At the hospital on MLK Day, Meakins gave a blood sample that will be sent to the CDC for further testing. She says she was told not to expect the results for four to 14 days. The wait, unsurprisingly, is agonizing. ?We are balls of worry right now, although we are trying to stay positive, love each other through and stay on top of the research as it comes in,? she says. Their fetus was the product of in vitro fertilization and so ?he was a little miracle already,? she says.
...
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/babymoon-turns-into-zika-nightmare/