An estimated 125 million pregnancies occur every year in the countries with ongoing malaria transmission (Dellicour et al. 2010). Due to the not yet well-established reasons, pregnant women are more susceptible to the effects of malaria infection. Combination of pregnancy-specific immunological and malaria-specific responses with some parasite types that sequester in the placenta (especially in the case of Plasmodium falciparum) might explain this susceptibility (Castillo et al. 2013; Mayor et al. 2011). The latter results in an increased risk of morbidity in the mother, mainly anemia, and low birth weight and prematurity in the infant; importantly it is also associated with increased mortality through both direct and indirect mechanisms (Rovira-Vallbona et al. 2013; Steketee et al. 2001). Owing to these harmful effects, malaria in pregnancy is an important driver of maternal and neonatal health in endemic areas. The latter, however, only recently has been recognized, which may...
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Menéndez, C., Bardají, A., González, R. (2015). Malaria in Pregnancy: A Maternal and Infant Health Problem. In: Hommel, M., Kremsner, P. (eds) Encyclopedia of Malaria. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-8757-9_61-1
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