From CBS News
March 8, 2019
It was late 2015 when communities in northeast Brazil started noticing an alarming increase in babies born with an unusual and devastating type of birth defect: microcephaly. The condition is characterized by an abnormally small head, and often neurological impairment. At first, no one knew what was causing the uptick, and concern grew as dozens of cases soon became hundreds.
By 2016, experts had zeroed in on the cause: Zika virus, contracted during pregnancy, may harm an unborn child’s brain development. Panic swept through Brazil and much of the western hemisphere as health officials scrambled to understand the disease and looked for ways to stop it.
For many families, life has never been the same.
Gleyse da Silva’s daughter Gigi was born in October of 2015, the height of the outbreak. Gleyse, already the mother of three boys, said she’d always wanted a girl. She found out when she was seven months pregnant that Gigi would be born with a smaller head.