microcephaly means being born with an abnormally small head, small in relation to the rest of the body. and it indicates that the brain may nothave grown adequately during pregnancy it can be caused by a number ofconditions, infections, severe malnutrition, exposure to toxic chemicals...but we are worried at the moment that the new emergence of zika virus, a relatively mild infection, in south america, has been associated with infections,presumably early in pregnancy which have affected the growth of thebaby's brains.
in order to know whether your child hasmicrocephaly or not, the first is you need to talk to your obstetrician ormidwife, who is caring for you antenatally and it may be possible to doultrasound scans later on in the pregnancy, to look at the baby's brainand to look at measures of brain growth but not all cases will be picked up inthe antenatal period. once the baby is born of course, then the baby needs to beproperly assessed by a pediatrician, by examining the baby looking atdevelopmental milestones and by doing brain imaging and measuring the head inrelation to the size of the body. there are certainly
cases of children born with smallheads, considered to be microcephalic, who have gone on to have completelynormal development. they may be the exception rather than the norm, but these cases certainly exists and we don't know much about if there isthis association between zika virus and microcephaly, which seems to be thecase, what end of the spectrum, whether this is the severe end or the mild end, so we have to be cautious what all children need is love and care andattention and stimulation and very good pediatric care and help fromdevelopmental specialists if they're running into developmental problems.
if you live in an affected region, where these mosquitoes are present, youmust assume that you are potentially at risk of contracting zika virus... insouth america right now, so therefore you do need to take personal protection, thatmeans making sure mosquitoes are excluded from your house, making surethat you use insect repellents to stop being bitten by mosquitoes, covering upduring the daytime with clothes that will protect you from being bitten, withthe aedes mosquitoes you have to worry about being bitten in the morning andduring the daytime and most important of all being part of a community andneighborhood movement to remove breeding
sites of mosquitoes. mosquitoes breedweather there is stagnant pools of water, in many urban situations you'll find upturnedtires, upturned flower pots, rubbish, puddles, dumps and if you mobilize the communitywe can do a lot to remove that source of mosquito breeding. there are alsochemicals that will kill the early forms of the mosquitoes, the larvae, so i think countriesneed to really get on a war footing against the mosquito
0 Response to "zika baby"
Post a Comment