No birth defects seen in babies exposed to Zika late in pregnancy - study

Aedes aegypti mosquitoes are seen inside Oxitec laboratory in Campinas, Brazil, February 2, 2016. REUTERS/Paulo Whitaker/File Photo

CHICAGO (Reuters) - A study of Zika infections in Colombia has found no obvious birth defects among women infected during the third trimester of pregnancy, raising hopes that Zika may not cause serious harm to the foetus when mothers are infected later in pregnancy.

"It's somewhat reassuring that it looks like third-trimester infections aren't posing a major risk of that very serious outcome," said Dr. Margaret Honein, chief of the birth defects branch at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, who was one of several authors of the study published online on Wednesday in the New England Journal of Medicine.