Fears during pregnancy are difficult to avoid. Mothers are always afraid that something could happen to their child, even when all prenatal tests indicate that it grows healthy in the womb. It is also logical that during the current pandemic insecurities are common, because it is still being studied how Covid-19 affects the baby in case of contagion from the mother during pregnancy.
So good news is always welcome. This is the case of a new study from Imperial College London that concludes that Covid-19 infection during pregnancy is not associated with fetal death or low birth weight.
Of course, the research, carried out with data from more than 4,000 pregnant women with suspected or confirmed coronavirus, also discovered that women who tested positive were more likely to suffer premature birth, although not spontaneously.
No babies in the study died
The research, published in the journal Ultrasound in Obstetrics and Gynecology, analyzed data from 4,004 pregnant women who gave birth between January and August 2020: 1,606 came from the United Kingdom, from the data registry called Pregnancy and Neonatal Outcomes in COVID-19 (PAN-COVID) and 2,398 from the United States, from the data registry of the Section of Neonatal Perinatal Medicine (SONPM) of the American Academy of Pediatrics.
The study found that no babies died from coronavirus or increased the risk of stillbirth or low birth weight.
The increase in preterm births is not due to a natural cause
In the UK, 12% of women with suspected or confirmed Covid delivered preterm, 60% more than the national average of 7.5%. The percentage in the United States was also considerably higher: 15.7% of the babies of infected women were born prematurely, 57% more than the US national average of 10%.
But even so, the researchers affirm that this increase may be due to the decision of doctors to advance labor due to fear of the consequences that the virus can cause in the mother and the baby. The spontaneous preterm birth rate was lower than expected.
Dr Ed Mullins, co-author from Imperial College London, points out the need for measures to protect pregnant women, such as vaccination:
“This study supports the prioritization of vaccination of women who are pregnant or planning to become pregnant, as well as existing measures that protect pregnant women from infection, in order to reduce premature births.”
Few newborns tested positive for Covid
Another encouraging result of the study is the low proportion of babies born to mothers with confirmed Covid-19 who subsequently tested positive for the virus: 2% in the UK study and 8% in the US study.
The findings are not so promising for deceased mothers: eight in the UK and four in the US. Most of the mothers did not have pre-existing conditions such as diabetes or a respiratory disease such as asthma.
But the researchers caution that while these death rates are higher than expected in women giving birth, they are similar to the expected death rates seen among adults with a confirmed Covid infection. This suggests that pregnant women do not have a higher risk of death from COVID-19 than non-pregnant women.
In summary, the study’s findings are reassuring, although they point to the need for more research to determine how the coronavirus affects mothers or preterm labor.
Vía | Imperial College of London
Photos | iStock
In Babies and More | The placenta protects the baby from Covid, even if the mother suffers a serious infection during pregnancy, Preterm labor: warning signs
