Earlier this week, we learned that Jessa Duggar is pregnant with her second child.
The news didn’t come as a huge shock to fans, as rumors that Jessa is expecting have been circulating for months.
(When you go from a selfie a day to nothing for almost four months, it’s a pretty good indication that you’re hiding something.)
Still, many fans were a bit caught off guard, as it was widely assumed that Jill Duggar would be the first of the Duggar sisters to bring a second kid into the world.
Jill is older; she’s been married longer, and she’s been quite open about her desire to raise a massive family in the grand Duggar tradition.
But there’s one very important reason that Jill might have made the wise decision to hold off on popping out another Dillard:
For the past year, she and husband Derick have been living in El Salvador performing missionary work.
If you’ve caught the evening news at any point in the past eight months, you know that means Jill is at greater risk for the Zika virus.
These days, Jill is back home in Tontitown, Arkansas, but the disease is still poorly understood, and women who recently lived in or visited any of the more heavily-affected areas have been advised to avoid getting pregnant until further notice.
Unfortunately, that would also mean Jessa Duggar is at risk.
Jill’s younger sister revealed in her pregnancy announcement that she’s due in February, which mean she and Ben Seewald conceived around May…
…which is just a few months after they visited Jill and Derick in El Selvador.
In addition, several American travelers have brought the illness home with them, and while it’s only contagious through insect bites, cases of “homegrown” Zika are on the rise in areas where a visitor of tropical climes recently returned to the States.
In all likelihood, Jessa and her baby are just fine.
Even so, for the safety’s sake the smart thing would’ve been to wait a little longer for baby number two.
Watch Counting On online to see if the family addresses these concerns this season.
