COVID-19 is a very challenging threat. Not only is it extremely dangerous, but there is little scientists can do to predict how it would affect different persons and how the situation would evolve.
Scientists made significant progress since the beginning of the pandemic.
Still, research regarding the effects of COVID-19 in pregnant women went slower than scientists hoped.
A new study reports that the risks may be more significant than initially thought, Sciencealert reports.
Stephen Kennedy, a reproductive medical researcher from the University of Oxford and one of the authors of the study, stated:
“We now know that the risks to mothers and babies are greater than we assumed at the start of the pandemic and that known health measures when implemented must include pregnant women.”
The research analyzed 2,130 pregnant women from 18 countries between March and October 2020. Over seven hundred of them got diagnosed with COVID-19 and the rest without, during a study known officially as INTERCOVID.
After each pregnant woman was confirmed with covid, the team enrolled two pregnant women from the same hospital in a similar stage of pregnancy. It then carefully tracked their progress until the birth and hospital discharge.
The study revealed that pregnant women with a Coronavirus infection are at a considerably increased risk of infections, intensive care unit admissions and potentially death.
The bad news is that the offspring is also at risk of being preterm and experience other complications.
The odds are really disappointing as the newborns of ill women are “nearly three times more at risk of severe medical complications, such as admission to a Neonatal Intensive Care Unit” primarily as a result of premature birth.
