Malnutrition in Children with Congenital Zika Virus Syndrome: A Systematic Review.

OBJECTIVE

We examined previous studies to describe growth deviations in children with Congenital Zika virus Syndrome (CZS), and to determine the factors associated with malnutrition.

STUDY

DESIGN

Protocol of systematic review registered on the PROSPERO platform under code CRD42023460505. The searches were conducted in SciELO, LILACS, Embase, Scopus, and PubMed/MEDLINE databases, as well as in dissertation and thesis repositories. The eligibility criteria required that the publications must be observational, cross-sectional, cohort, or case-control studies conducted with children with microcephaly associated with CZS, which presented results (z-score) of anthropometric indices of weight-for-age, height-for-age, weight-for-height, and/or body mass index (BMI)-for-age; written in English, Portuguese, or Spanish; and published between 2010 and 2023. The z-score values ​​from anthropometric indices and the factors associated with malnutrition (wasting, underweight, overweight, or stunting) were extracted.

RESULTS

Eleven studies met our inclusion criteria. In these studies, children's ages ranged from 0 to 48 months. Malnutrition was identified as stunting (14.3% to 57.1%), underweight (14.3% to 54.4%), wasting (4.3% to 48.0%), and, to a lesser extent, as overweight (4.6% to 68.6%). The association of these indices was examined in relation to dysphagia, absence or duration of breastfeeding, delayed introduction of complementary feeding, consumption of ultra-processed foods, and feeding route.

CONCLUSION

It was possible to identify short stature, wasting, excess weight, and inappropriate eating practices in children with CZS.