Background: Prenatally transmitted viruses can cause severe damage to the developing brain. There is unexplained variability in prenatal brain injury and postnatal neurodevelopmental outcomes, suggesting disease modifiers. Of note, prenatal Zika infection can cause a spectrum of neurodevelopmental disorders, including congenital Zika syndrome.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFZika virus (ZIKV) infection in pregnancy is associated with severe abnormalities of the brain and eye and other adverse outcomes. Zika en Embarazadas y Niños was a prospective cohort study conducted in multiple Colombian cities that enrolled pregnant women in their first trimester. Specimens collected from pregnant women (n = 1,519) during February 2017-September 2018 and their infants (n = 1,080) during June 2017-March 2019 were tested for prenatal ZIKV infection by nucleic acid amplification tests or IgM antibody testing.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: Prenatally transmitted viruses can cause severe damage to the developing brain. There is unexplained variability in prenatal brain injury and postnatal neurodevelopmental outcomes, suggesting disease modifiers. Discordant outcomes among dizygotic twins could be explained by genetic susceptibly or protection.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFWe used National Birth Defects Prevention Study data to investigate associations between working patterns shortly before and during pregnancy and gestational diabetes and pregnancy-related hypertension. We analyzed working patterns (multiple-job holders, job changers, single-job holders) during the three months before and during pregnancy for 8140 participants who delivered a live-born child without a birth defect. "Multiple-job holders" worked more than one job simultaneously, "job changers" worked more than one job with no overlap, and "single-job holders" (referent) worked one job.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBMC Res Notes
March 2024
Objective: Zika virus (ZIKV) infection in pregnancy can cause brain and eye abnormalities and neurodevelopmental sequelae. In the absence of medical countermeasures, behavioral interventions were recommended to prevent mosquito bites and sexual transmission of ZIKV. This report uses data from the Zika en Embarazadas y Niños (ZEN) prospective cohort study in Colombia to describe the knowledge, attitudes, and behaviors (KAB) related to ZIKV prevention in male partners compared to those of their pregnant partners at study enrollment during February 2017-2018.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFAs the worldwide COVID-19 pandemic unfolded, the clinical and public health community raced to understand SARS-CoV-2 infection and develop life-saving vaccines. Pregnant persons were disproportionately impacted, experiencing more severe illness and adverse pregnancy outcomes. And yet, when COVID-19 vaccines became available in late 2020, safety and efficacy data were not available to inform their use during pregnancy because pregnant persons were excluded from pre-authorization clinical trials.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: SARS-CoV-2 infection in pregnancy is associated with an increased risk of adverse birth outcomes such as preterm birth, stillbirth, and maternal and infant complications. Previous research suggests an increased risk of severe COVID-19 illness and stillbirth in pregnant people during delta variant predominance in 2021; however, those studies did not assess timing of infection during pregnancy, and few of them described COVID-19 vaccination status.
Objective: Using a large population-based cohort, this study compared pregnancy and infant outcomes and described demographic and clinical characteristics of pregnant people with SARS-CoV-2 infection prior to and during the delta variant period.
We describe hepatitis C testing of 47 (2%) of 2,266 children diagnosed with perinatal hepatitis C who were exposed during 2018-2020 in 7 jurisdictions in the United States. Expected frequency of perinatal transmission is 5.8%, indicating only one third of the cases in this cohort were reported to public health authorities.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: Studies examining the association between in utero Zika virus (ZIKV) exposure and child neurodevelopmental outcomes have produced varied results.
Methods: We aimed to assess neurodevelopmental outcomes among normocephalic children born from pregnant people enrolled in the Zika in Pregnancy in Honduras (ZIPH) cohort study, July-December 2016. Enrollment occurred during the first prenatal visit.
Background: The Surveillance for Emerging Threats to Pregnant People and Infants Network (SET-NET) collects data abstracted from medical records and birth defects registries on pregnant people and their infants to understand outcomes associated with prenatal exposures. We developed an automated process to categorize possible birth defects for prenatal COVID-19, hepatitis C, and syphilis surveillance. By employing keyword searches, fuzzy matching, natural language processing (NLP), and machine learning (ML), we aimed to decrease the number of cases needing manual clinician review.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: Gastroschisis prevalence more than doubled between 1995 and 2012. While there are individual-level risk factors (e.g.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: Individual measures of socioeconomic status (SES) have been associated with an increased risk of neural tube defects (NTDs); however, the association between neighborhood SES and NTD risk is unknown. Using data from the National Birth Defects Prevention Study (NBDPS) from 1997 to 2011, we investigated the association between measures of census tract SES and NTD risk.
Methods: The study population included 10,028 controls and 1829 NTD cases.
Background: To characterize neurodevelopmental abnormalities in children up to 36 months of age with congenital Zika virus exposure.
Methods: From the U.S.
J Womens Health (Larchmt)
September 2023
Background: Two strong risk factors for gastroschisis are young maternal age (<20 years) and low/normal pre-pregnancy body mass index (BMI), yet the reasons remain unknown. We explored whether neighborhood-level socioeconomic position (nSEP) during pregnancy modified these associations.
Methods: We analyzed data from 1269 gastroschisis cases and 10,217 controls in the National Birth Defects Prevention Study (1997-2011).
The objective of this analysis was to describe patterns of prescription medication use during pregnancy, including secular trends, with consideration of indication, and distributions of use within demographic subgroups. We conducted a descriptive secondary analysis using data from 9,755 women whose infants served as controls in two large United States case-control studies from 1997-2011 and 2014-2018. After excluding vitamin, herbal, mineral, vaccine, i.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFProblem: Medication for opioid use disorder (MOUD) is recommended for persons with opioid use disorder (OUD) during pregnancy. However, knowledge gaps exist about best practices for management of OUD during pregnancy and these data are needed to guide clinical care.
Period Covered: 2014-2021.
Importance: Associations between prenatal SARS-CoV-2 exposure and neurodevelopmental outcomes have substantial public health relevance. A previous study found no association between prenatal SARS-CoV-2 infection and parent-reported infant neurodevelopmental outcomes, but standardized observational assessments are needed to confirm this finding.
Objective: To assess whether mild or asymptomatic maternal SARS-CoV-2 infection vs no infection during pregnancy is associated with infant neurodevelopmental differences at ages 5 to 11 months.
Background: Neighborhood-level socioeconomic position has been shown to influence birth outcomes, including selected birth defects. This study examines the un derstudied association between neighborhood-level socioeconomic position during early pregnancy and the risk of gastroschisis, an abdominal birth defect of increasing prevalence.
Methods: We conducted a case-control study of 1,269 gastroschisis cases and 10,217 controls using data from the National Birth Defects Prevention Study (1997-2011).