‘Take note’ of Zika risk

DELAYING pregnancies due to fear of the Zika virus could have disastrous consequences for the older woman trying to become pregnant.

Medical director of the Barbados Fertility Centre, Dr Juliet Skinner, has recommended that Barbadian women weigh their options carefully.

“You have to balance the risk against what is known because delaying child-bearing could have consequences for an older woman; it could be the difference between success and failure,” she said during a telephone interview yesterday.

Skinner, a gynaecologist, said there was no reason to panic as there was a very slim chance for a mother to pass on a viral infection such as Zika to her foetus, adding that 98 per cent of pregnant women who contracted a virus had completely healthy children. She also said there were steps people could take to prevent being bitten by the Aedes Egypti mosquito, which carries the virus, in the first place.

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