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Do You Still Need to Be Worried About Zika?
The media has stopped paying attention. Does that mean you can, too?
When Maureen McCollum, now 37, got married during the height of the Zika virus pandemic in 2016, her honeymoon to the Dominican Republic was on the chopping block.
“I would cancel your trip,” doctors said at the time, when the couple expressed that they wanted a baby. In the end, McCollum and her husband traveled but chose to delay trying to conceive for six months, per the doctors’ recommendations.
McCollum is currently pregnant and expecting a baby girl in January. She says her doctors seem less worried about Zika virus now than they were in 2016.
Still, it’s been hard to shift from the conservative mindset McCollum was in when Zika was a more prevalent fixture in the news. “I think in the back of my mind, the extreme caution we had when we were first trying is still playing a role in any decision I would make when traveling too far from home,” she said.
For couples who are trying to get pregnant these days, the dramatic rise and fall of Zika virus from the public consciousness, coupled with the dearth of information about what the actual risk level is for contracting Zika in 2019, has created a minefield.
