Pregnant women with COVID-19 at higher risk of death and severe pneumonia

Pregnant women are at a greater risk of severe COVID-19 complications, and even death. Read on to know why pregnant women are more susceptible to infections.

Pregnancy is a risk factor for death, pneumonia and intensive care unit (ICU) admission in women of reproductive age who are infected with COVID-19, according to researchers.

This means pregnant women with SARS CoV 2 infection are at higher risk of death, ICU admission and severe pneumonia, concluded a study published in Ultrasound in Obstetrics & Gynecology (UOG) the official journal of the International Society of Ultrasound in Obstetrics and Gynecology (ISUOG).

For the study, the data were obtained from the COVID 19 National Data Registry of Mexico, which included people of any age with clinically suspected SARS CoV 2 infection and admitted to 475 monitoring hospitals. The researchers focussed on the data of pregnant and non pregnant women of reproductive age (15 49 years) with COVID 19 confirmed by reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR). The initial sample included 5183 pregnant and 175,908 non pregnant COVID 19 patients.

After adjusting for background demographic and underlying risk factors, it was found that pregnant women had higher odds of death, pneumonia and ICU admission than non pregnant women. However, both had similar odds of intubation, which is done so that a patient can be placed on a ventilator to assist with breathing.

COVID-19 test a must for pregnant women

Not just the elderly and people with underlying health conditions, but pregnant women are at a greater risk of severe complications of this disease, according to experts.

You need to have a strong immune system to fight off the COVID-19 infection. But pregnancy suppresses the mother's immune system to ensure the foetus isn't rejected as something foreign. This makes pregnant women more susceptible to infections. Also, the size of the chest cavity becomes small during pregnancy because of the pressure from the growing womb, which means the lungs have less space to work. Because of this reason pregnant women tend to experience breathing difficulties in the last trimester. This is also another factor that can put a pregnant woman at higher risk of developing severe complications of COVID-19.

Recognising all these risk factors, the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) has already made it mandatory for all pregnant women, even if they don't have symptoms, to get the COVID-19 tests done in health care facilities where they are expected to deliver. It also instructed health facilities to make all arrangements to collect and transfer samples to testing facilities.

Some experts have warned that COVID-19 can affect both pregnant women and their unborn child. However, the debate on whether the virus can be transmitted to the foetus is still on.

Results of some studies have suggested that pregnant women with COVID-19 are more likely to give birth prematurely and babies born to COVID-infected mothers are likelier to be admitted to a neonatal unit.

Majority of pregnant women with Covid-19 are asymptomatic

More than one-third of pregnant women who arrived in the labour and delivery unit of Elmhurst hospital at Queens, New York, during March and April, tested positive for the coronavirus. Surprisingly, almost 72 per cent of pregnant women who tested positive for COVID-19 on arrival to the delivery room were asymptomatic, according to a study recently published in the journal 'PLOS One'.

These findings add to the evidence that limiting COVID testing to only symptomatic individuals might have led to early and rampant asymptomatic spread of the disease.

Study author Dr Sheela Maru from the Mount Sinai hospital in the US noted that universal screening in the labour and delivery unit allowed appropriate identification and isolation of pregnant women with positive test results. This ensured the safety of patients and staff during an acute surge in Covid-19 infections, she added.