The CDC recommends that healthcare providers advise patients who may be or are pregnant not to travel to areas where Zika is being spread by mosquitoes. The WHO recommends that anyone who could have been exposed to the Zika virus refrain from sex or practice safe sex with condoms for a period of three months. Their recommendation is based on evidence that the virus may be viable in semen or vaginal fluids for longer, and those asymptomatic individuals can transmit the virus to their sexual partners.
The following are recommendations from the CDC website for pregnant patients:
- Pregnant patients should not travel to high risk areas.
- Pregnant patients and their partners living in or traveling to high risk areas should follow steps to prevent mosquito bites.
- Individuals who live in or travel to high risk areas and who have a pregnant sex partner should use condoms to prevent infection every time they have sex or should abstain from sex during the pregnancy.
- Pregnant patients who live in or frequently travel to high risk areas should be tested in the first and second trimesters of pregnancy.
- Pregnant patients with possible Zika exposure and signs or symptoms of Zika should be tested for Zika.
- Pregnant patients who traveled to or had unprotected sex with a partner who traveled to or lives in high risk areas should talk to their healthcare provider and should be tested for Zika.
The CDC recommends that a patient should wait at least eight weeks after possible exposure to the Zika virus before trying to get pregnant. It is not believed that Zika can affect future pregnancies.
