Nearly one hundred south Florida residents gathered to hear medical specialists talk about precautions families should take to protect pregnant women and their unborn children from contracting the Zika virus.
The talk, called "Zika and Pregnancy: What You Need to Know Now," was organized by Baptist Health Resource Center in their Kendall location last Wednesday.
Specialists at the conference included Jason S. James and Michael H. Jacobs, two reproductive doctors, and infection control expert Barbara Russell. Each strongly suggested that people looking to get pregnant avoid traveling to countries where there are high cases of the virus like Brazil and Puerto Rico.
Kendall resident, Alysia Mesa wants to get pregnant before the end of the year, but experts’ advice left her worried.
“It definitely made me a little nervous. He mentioned that if a man travels outside the US to an area where Zika is known to be, they should wait at least six months before impregnating a woman. So that’s kind of a longer time than what I had in my mind," Mesa said.
Fertility patient Angeline Falcon is a teacher in Miami-Dade. She’s scheduled for a frozen embryo transfer next week, and said she came to the event to learn about how she and her husband can be safe.
“My husband does travel to Latin America and we’ve ruled out him traveling overseas if I were to be pregnant in the next few months," said Falcon.
For women already pregnant, experts recommended other protective measures like spraying clothes and open skin areas with mosquito repellant and to use barrier protection like condoms throughout the pregnancy.
