Covid-19 carries serious risks during pregnancy

Pregnant women were previously known to be more vulnerable to infectious disease epidemics. The weakness is due, among other things, to normal changes in the immune system during pregnancy.

Some smaller studies have previously shown that COVID-19 also appears to be a serious health threat to pregnant women. This is now confirmed by a new study conducted in 43 clinics in 18 countries in different parts of the world and published in the American Journal of Pediatrics Gamma.

A total of 706 pregnant women with covid-19 and 1,424 pregnant women without covid virus participated. The results show that pregnant women with covid-19 are clearly at risk of developing toxicity during pregnancy (76% higher risk) and for infections requiring antibiotics (slightly more than 300% higher risk).

Just over eight percent of pregnant women with COVID-19 required intensive care, compared to less than 2 percent of uninfected women. Mortality rates between these two groups of women were 1.6 and 0.1 percent, respectively.

Caesarean sections and premature births were significantly more common among those infected with the virus, as was premature labor and low weight in children whose mothers had contracted the Covid-19 virus.

Even when pregnant women with COVID-19 were symptom-free, there was an increase in the risk for them and their babies, but not to the same extent as when the mother was experiencing symptoms.

The most satisfactory result was that only 12% of children of HIV-positive women contracted the virus. No child was infected through breastfeeding.