When the pandemic broke out in March last year, pregnant women about to give birth were especially concerned about their deliveries. How would the Covid pandemic affect deliveries? What would the new protocols look like?
At that time there were many doubts and few certainties about the SARS-CoV-2 virus. And now we know of a multicenter study of the first wave of the pandemic led by the Gregorio Marañón General University Hospital, in which the Complutense University of Madrid (UCM) participates, which has identified that infection and the development of pneumonia are related to a increased risk of cesarean section and premature delivery .
The risk of developing severe pneumonia
The study, published in the journal ‘BMC Pregnancy and Childbirth’ , was conducted between March 15 and July 30, 2020 in 13 Spanish hospitals. 105 pregnant women with a diagnosis of Covid-19 participated in it, with an average age of 34 years and 107 newborns. 30.8% of the pregnant women suffered pneumonia and 4.8% were admitted to the ICU with the need for mechanical ventilation.
“SARS-CoV-2 infection can lead to greater morbidity for pregnant women if pneumonia develops, with different severity profiles,” warns Itziar Carrasco, researcher at the UCM School of Medicine and the Pediatric Infectious Diseases Service of the Gregorio Marañón Hospital.
The anatomical, physiological, and immunological changes that accompany pregnancy can increase a pregnant woman’s susceptibility to viruses and increase the risk of developing severe SARS-CoV-2 pneumonia.
This infection may force the patient to be transferred to the ICU or intubated, two situations that in the case of pregnant women put their life and that of the baby at risk.
All CRPs performed on newborns were negative at birth, one was positive at 15 days of age, and two babies died, one due to causes related to prematurity and the other due to sudden death syndrome during the first 24 hours after birth. Birth.
“The study was a challenge as it needed samples from infected pregnant women at the time of delivery, such as blood and placenta, at a time when the situation was completely unknown and there was a lot of uncertainty about the possible routes of transmission,” he acknowledges. Carrasco.
The ignorance of the first wave
The subsequent waves are currently being investigated since July 2020 and have already been able to warn “less impact and morbidity” in pregnant women , thanks to the greater knowledge of the virus and the advance of security measures.
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