Pregnant patients may be at increased risk for severe COVID-19 complications, says CDC

Pregnancy

A new study found COVID-19 puts pregnant patients at increased risk of admission to intensive care and being put on a ventilator. (Douglas Hook / MassLive)

Pregnant patients who contract COVID-19 may be at higher risk of hospitalization in intensive care and being put on a ventilator, according to new data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

“The new data released (Wednesday) suggest a different level of risk for pregnant patients than was previously indicated by earlier data,” said Dr. Christopher Zahn, vice president at the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, in a statement.

The overall risk of an ICU stay or ventilation still remains low, Zahn said. And, importantly, “pregnant patients do not appear to be at increased risk of death associated with COVID-19 compared with nonpregnant patients in the same age group,” he said.

The CDC data comes from a newly released study of thousands of pregnant COVID-19 patients.

About one-third of pregnant women with COVID-19 were hospitalized, compared with 6% of non-pregnant women with COVID-19, the study found.

In the United States, about 10,000 pregnant women have been diagnosed with COVID-19 and 26 have died, according to the CDC. Roughly 3,000 were hospitalized.

The Alabama Department of Public Health does not release numbers of pregnant coronavirus cases in Alabama, but does track underlying medical conditions for confirmed deaths. As of June 26, none of the 887 Alabamians who died from COVID-19 were pregnant.

A small number of pregnant patients with COVID-19 in Alabama have had conditions serious enough to place them in intensive care units, said Dr. Alan Tita, director of the UAB Center for Women’s Reproductive Health and professor of maternal-fetal medicine at UAB.

He said he has not noticed pregnant patients being more likely than others in their age group to be admitted to the ICU or put on ventilators, but the small number makes it difficult to see patterns on a state level.

“Pregnant women have had severe (cases of COVID-19), but to say it’s more severe than we see in the general population of reproductive age, it’s not something that’s struck us,” he said. The new data warrants further scrutiny, he said, but it is not a complete surprise. During the H1N1 flu epidemic in 2009, pregnant women had more severe infections than non-pregnant women, he said.

He said there has not been enough evidence to show that coronavirus passes from mother to baby in the womb, though there have been cases of infants contracting the disease.

Right now, Tita said pregnant women should take all possible precautions to avoid coronavirus infection, including wearing masks in public, social distancing, washing hands and sanitizing when possible. Don’t skip prenatal appointments with the obstetrician, he said, and use telehealth visits when recommended.

“It’s a very distressing situation,” he said, “and this is something we’ll continue to look into, to see whether there are any indications to change the current (medical) recommendations for pregnant women.”

He stressed the chances are still rare that a pregnant patient would have to be ventilated or placed in the ICU for COVID-19.

“The bottom line is for everyone to do everything to prevent this,” he said. “Do everything within your power to prevent a COVID-19 infection by following the CDC guidelines, whether pregnant or no.”

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