May 2016 Moms
bkjade
member
Rebooking vacations due to Zika
bkjade
member
DH and I are rebooking our vacation to Mexico due to the CDC travel alert. We were really looking forward to going but it just doesn't seem worth the risk. It seems that all of the tropical places we would like to go are on the damn CDC list! Anyone else making new travel arrangements? Where are you going? Any warm and beachy travel recommendations?
Re: Rebooking vacations due to Zika
Zika’s alarming spread: CDC investigates link to paralyzing condition, adds 8 countries to travel warning
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/to-your-health/wp/2016/01/21/zika-virus-faq-more-than-a-million-infected-globally-a-dozen-in-the-united-states/
Spa treatments, indoor pools, antiquing, bonfires, and boardgames. Not super-sexy, but it will be so nice to get away, and I am already fantasizing about those massages!
On the plus side, because it's not really ski country and all the lake activities are summertime things, all the resorts are running about half price now.
https://www.scarymommy.com/officials-warn-zika-virus-is-headed-for-the-us/?utm_source=FB
It's only two cases, but it seems pretty conclusive: husband gets Zika, goes home to Colorado where he has unprotected sex with his wife, who contracts virus. No other possible means of transmission, and the other case involved a man whose semen contained the virus months after he recovered.
So now the advice is to just not have sex if either partner has been in a location with the aedes aegyptus mosquito. Which is everywhere in the western hemisphere but Canada and Chile.
And it's even worse, because Zika symptoms don't always manifest, and some people don't register that they've been bitten by mosquitoes (and not all bites swell). So literally anyone could have it.
At least there's a blood test. But you'd have to do it before you start trying...
BFP 1: 9/15/2013 | DD 5/23/2014
BFP 2: 9/15/2015 | EDD 5/26/2016
and I don't want to spend the entire trip a nervous wreck. Most news outlets are saying it will eventually hit Florida, but as of right now it is a non issue?
Semi-off-topic, but I cannot BELIEVE the government in El Salvador is just throwing up its hands and saying "yeah uh we got nothin', just don't have any kids for the next two years." Seriously? That's your plan? Good god, well, now I know where the zombie apocalypse is destined to begin: with an entire country that just gives up within weeks and tells its citizens they're on their own as soon as a new danger gets announced.
@Merciel I agree! I saw Jamaica (where the virus isn't even detected yet) had told their residents not to get pregnant. How is that a valid reaction to this.
On a scientific note- how do they get rid of it?
We are currently on our babymoon on Anna Maria island, Florida. It is very pretty. While not as warm as somewhere in the Caribbean, it is still nice. And I feel a lot safer in many aspects.. Knowing the food & water is safer and if something were to happen to me medically, id rather be in a hospital here than one in Mexico !
@yogahh I may call my OB and see if it is a test they even offer, or whether I should come in before my appointment 2/4.
BFP 1: 9/15/2013 | DD 5/23/2014
BFP 2: 9/15/2015 | EDD 5/26/2016
And (not to be alarmist) but no one knows the mechanism by which it affects pregnancy. Do you have to acquire Zika while pregnant to do any damage? Or is having had it in the past enough? Once you've had it, is there an immunity that can protect you and baby?
I feel El Salvador's pain: It's going to take time to figure these things out, and in the meantime, the only way to prevent birth defects is to not have births. Not saying we should throw up our hands, but until researchers figure out more, I don't know what else anyone can do (besides call our representatives to force the government to allocate more resources to the virus).
And seriously, as if being pregnant doesn't open you up to enough stuff to be worried about. Zika virus on top of it? Are you kidding me? I have reached my saturation point!
Of course I don't want to endanger my unborn child so the safest thing is just to cancel but when I think about this rationally, I feel like the risk is so low, if I am super vigilant, I should be fine. UGH.
https://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/29/health/zika-virus-spreading-explosively-in-americas-who-says.html?smprod=nytcore-iphone&smid=nytcore-iphone-share NYTimes: Zika Virus ‘Spreading Explosively’ in Americas, W.H.O. Says
Thanks for the info! I did some googling and it took some research but I found the same thing. That certainly sets my mind at ease. There have been four confirmed cases of local transmission in Nuevo León, just south of the Texas border. I bought some bug spray with DEET, but I think I'm in the clear. Stay healthy @gampster!
BFP 1: 9/15/2013 | DD 5/23/2014
BFP 2: 9/15/2015 | EDD 5/26/2016
Not to revive that whole debate, but El Salvador has some of the strictest anti-abortion laws in the world. Like, to an actually insane degree (check out the 2013 case of "Beatriz" and her anencephalic fetus that had to be delivered by C-section and forcibly kept alive for 5 hours by order of the Supreme Court: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abortion_in_El_Salvador).
So on the one hand you have that, and a total lack of education about or access to reliable birth control measures that anybody might use to prevent this from happening in the first place, and on the other hand you have this rapidly-spreading disease that appears to cause major birth defects with no cure or treatment, and the government's response is to say "just don't have kids! for two years! because apparently we're just going to give up in advance for at least that long!"
It's a PR disaster, it's a complete abdication of leadership, and it is particularly ridiculous in light of how badly they've sabotaged their own female citizens from having any other option at all.
IMO that deserves condemnation. It is just straight-up shameful on every level.