Pregnant women with Covid more likely to die, shows study
What you need to know:
- Findings show infected pregnant women have a greater risk of being admitted to intensive care unit (ICU), needing a ventilator or developing pneumonia if they have a Covid-19 infection.
- At the same time, babies who are born to women with a Covid-19 infection during pregnancy also have a greater risk of developing severe outcomes. They are twice as likely to need treatment in the ICU after birth and have an increased risk of being born preterm.
Pregnant women infected with Covid-19 are more likely to die from complications of the virus than those who are not pregnant. A new study suggests that Covid-19 is a threat during pregnancy.
Findings of the study published in the journal BMJ Global Health show infected pregnant women have a greater risk of being admitted to intensive care unit (ICU), needing a ventilator or developing pneumonia if they have a Covid-19 infection.
At the same time, babies who are born to women with a Covid-19 infection during pregnancy also have a greater risk of developing severe outcomes. They are twice as likely to need treatment in the ICU after birth and have an increased risk of being born preterm. “Preterm babies are at high risk of having lifelong health problems including delays in early childhood cognitive development,” said Emily R Smith, an assistant professor of global health at the George Washington University Milken Institute School of Public Health, who was lead author of the study. The researchers pooled individual patient data from 12 studies conducted in 12 countries involving more than 13,000 pregnant women.
The study established that currently, up to 80 countries do not have a recommendation for Covid-19 vaccination for all pregnant and lactating women.
Pregnant women who get Covid-19 were found to be more than five times higher risk of thromboembolic disease, or blood clots that can cause pain, swelling, or other life-threatening complications. For instance, seven per cent of pregnant women with Covid-19 died compared with one per cent of pregnant women who did not have Covid. Nearly a fifth of the Covid-infected pregnant women ended up developing pneumonia. This made the diagnosis 23 times more common in pregnant women with Covid than in uninfected pregnant women. Smith said implications of the study are that it is really important for all pregnant women or women who are thinking about getting pregnant to get vaccinated.
“This can really reduce the risk of having some of these bad outcomes for mum or for baby,” she said.
The researchers pooled individual patient data from 12 studies conducted in 12 countries involving more than 13,000 pregnant women. The research study established that currently, up to 80 countries do not have a recommendation for Covid-19 vaccination for all pregnant and lactating women. The study attributed the low rate of vaccination for pregnant women on the assumption that pregnant women are usually healthy and have built sufficient immunity against infections. “Vaccination rates for pregnant people are low probably because the assumption is that if a person is pregnant, they are probably young and for the most part healthy,” said Smith. This research study was titled “Adverse maternal, fetal and newborn outcomes among 1942 pregnant women with SARS-CoV-2 infection, as compared to 11194 negative pregnancies: A individual participant data meta-analysis.
