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Updated: Jun 28, 2026

Ex vivo Culture of Human Placental Explants for the Study of Viral Transmission Across the Maternal-Fetal Interface
Published on: December 30, 2025
Perinatal outcomes after second trimester detection of amniotic fluid viral genome in asymptomatic patients
Jena L Miller1, Christopher Harman, Carl Weiner
1Department of Obstetrics, Gynecology, and Reproductive Sciences, University of Maryland Medical Center, Baltimore, MD 21201, USA.
Objective:
Symptomatic fetal viral infection can affect placental and fetal development and may lead to non-immune hydrops or fetal death. All infections are not detectable by clinical history or ultrasound and a background positivity rate exists in asymptomatic patients. We investigated if intraamniotic presence of viral genome at the time of genetic amniocentesis in asypmtomatic patients affects perinatal outcome.
Study Design:
Six-hundred and eighty-six pregnancies referred for second trimester genetic amniocentesis with a normal ultrasound and fetal karyotype had amniotic fluid multiplex polymerase chain reaction for adeno-, cytomegalo-, Ebstein-Barr-, entero- and parvovirus. Forty asymptomatic patients that were positive for viral genome were matched 2:1 with negative controls. Perinatal outcomes were compared between these groups.
Results:
Pregnancy complications and perinatal outcomes were similar in the two groups.
Conclusion:
Asymptomatic fetal viral infection at the time of second trimester amniocentesis does not increase the risk for adverse perinatal outcome.
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