Meredith WadmanScience’s COVID-19 reporting is supported by the Pulitzer Center and the Heising-Simons Foundation.Yalda Afshar hears the worries every day from her patients: Will COVID-19 hit me harder because I’m pregnant?
If I’m infected, will the virus damage my baby? Afshar, a high-risk obstetrician at Ronald Reagan University of California (UC), Los Angeles, Medical Center, understands the women’s concerns better than most: Her first child is due in October.Data on pregnancy and COVID-19 are woefully incomplete.
But they offer some reassurance: Fetal infections later in pregnancy appear to be rare, and experts are cautiously optimistic that the coronavirus won’t warp early fetal development (see sidebar).