Deworming Medication Increased Chances Of Fetus Surviving
Deworming medication for pregnant women increases the chances of a fetus surviving pregnancy, according to a new study. This means that women who live in countries where the risk is high of coming into contact with parasitic worms should receive consistent deworming therapies to keep themselves , which translates to having a .
According to researchers from Syracuse University and the World Health Organization, pregnant women who receive deworming medication while they are , have a lower risk of their babies dying in the first four weeks after delivery and their babies being born with a low birth rate, according to the .
According to the study, which was published in , the efficacy of the deworming medications was known to adults and children. What was not known was if the medications would positively impact babies in utero.
However, for the mothers who took the medication and removed the worms from their body during pregnancy:
•14 percent decrease in the risk for neonatal mortality in both high and low transmission countries
•For those in low transmission countries, there was an 11 percent decrease in the risk of having low birthweight babies.
This information was determined by performing a retroactive study reviewing the data of nearly 770,000 births between 1998 and 2008 in countries known to have a high prevalence of being infected by worms caused by .
The parasitic worms in , the Americas, China, and East Asia, are a result of poor sanitation and lack of clean drinking water, according to the World Health Organization.
As such, soil-transmitted helminths such as roundworm, hookworm, and whipworm are easily transmitted when the "soil is contaminated with human feces," according to the . If not treated, the worms can result in anemia, poor growth in children, and cognitive development delays in children as well.
Researchers note that while the deworming medications are inexpensive and effective in treating those who have contracted worms, they require constant deworming to stay on top of reinfection. This means:
•Communities where 20 percent of the population is infected, deworming needs to be done annually
•Communities where 50 percent of the population is infected, deworming needs to be done every six months, according to .
What is needed, per the World Health Organization, is access to better sanitation and clean drinking water. However, because putting in the infrastructure to accommodate both is expensive and takes time to coordinate, many areas are left with battling consistent worm infections.
As such, it is imperative that deworming medications are available to these communities consistently to keep pregnant women and their babies as safe as possible in the battle against soil-transmitted helminths.
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