Clinical expressions in children born from mothers infected by the zika virus during pregnancy Pediatric Hospital Borrás-Marfán. 2016-2018

Abstract

Introduction: The infection of the Zika virus that is endemic in Asia and Africa has now been extended to the Americas. This virus is considered teratogenic, producing a new disease that must be studied in depth. Objetives: This is to identify the clinical expressions found in children from mothers infected with the Zika virus during their pregnancy, and thereby establish the possible association of the time of the prenatal exposure to the Zika virus and the positive clinical findings. Methods: We carried out a transversal descriptive study, with 86 children from women having had an infection by the Zika virus, which were pregnant between January 2016 and December 2018. For the correlation between the presence of positive findings and the trimester of pregnancy at the detection of the infection by the Zika virus, we used Spearman’s correlation with a significance level of p ≤ 0.05. Results: Out of the total number of patients included in the study, 27 expressed a positive clinical finding. Among the neurological disorders, those related to muscular tone were the most frequent (15.48%), followed by psychomotor retardation (10.71%) and microcephaly (9.52%). An association was observed between the prenatal exposure to the Zika virus during the first trimester of pregnancy and the presence of positive clinical findings. Conclusions: There was a prevalence of neurological expressions, followed by visual expressions. The evidence proved that the exposure to the Zika virus during the first trimester of pregnancy had a teratogenic effect.