Pregnant COVID-19 patients are about 40% more likely to develop serious complications or die than their uninfected peers, suggests a study led by University of Utah Health researchers published yesterday in JAMA.The retrospective cohort study examined the outcomes of 41,104 women who delivered at 17 US hospitals from Mar 1 to Dec 31, 2020, following them up to Feb 11, 2021.
Among the patients, 2,352 had COVID-19 and 11,752 did not.Most women (80.1%) tested positive for COVID-19 in the third trimester, while 17.6% were in the second trimester, and 2.3% were in the third trimester.
Among the 103 patients (4.4%) who first tested positive after delivery, the median timing was 18 days after delivery.Among patients testing positive, 58 (2.5%) did so more than 2 weeks after delivery.
COVID-19 was categorized as critical in 59 patients (2.5%), severe in 180 (7.7%), moderate in 347 (14.8%), mild in 728 (31.0%), and asymptomatic in 1,038 (44.1%).Risks for cesarean birth, ICU admissionRelative to uninfected patients, those diagnosed as having COVID-19 were significantly more likely to die or become seriously ill because of high blood pressure-related pregnancy disorders, postpartum hemorrhage, or other respiratory infection (13.4% vs 9.2%; adjusted relative risk [aRR], 1.41).