According to figures published in PLoS Medicine today, pregnant women who have caught COVID-19 have about double the risk of developing serious, potentially life-threatening (for mother and foetus) complications during pregnancy, compared to those who remain free of the virus. For example, 4.8% of pregnant women infected with the virus are going to develop gestational diabetes as opposed to 1.3% of those who do not have COVID-19 and 16.7% are going to have a pre-term delivery at <37 weeks compared to the 7.1% of those who do not have the infection.
The inescapable conclusion then is that pregnant women and women intending to get pregnant in the near future should be vaccinated to lessen the chances of these complications arising. Any slight risk of rare complications from the vaccine are more than outweighed by the risks from the virus, contrary to widely believed lies being promulgated by antivaxxers for political ends.
According to information supplied ahead of the paper's publication in PLoS Medicine:
Pregnant women with COVID-19 are more likely to have complications with pregnancy and birth compared to those without, according to research publishing November 30th in the open-access journal PLOS Medicine. The study looks at hospitalization for births in France during the first six months of the pandemic and suggests that vaccination may be useful to protect women and their babies, particularly for women at a higher risk of developing severe COVID-19 infections.In the abstract to their open access paper in PLOS Medicine, the authors say:
Few studies have looked at associations between COVID-19 and pregnancy outcomes, particularly during the first wave in early 2020. Sylvie Epelboin and colleagues from the Universite de Paris analyzed data for hospitalizations for birth after 22 weeks gestation in France between January and June 2020. Until 15 March, all confirmed cases of COVID were hospitalized but after this hospital admission was based on the medical condition of the patient. Of 244,465 births in hospital, 874 or 0.36% of mothers had been diagnosed with COVID-19.
Women in the COVID-19 group were more likely to be older, have obesity, be carrying more than one baby, or have a history of high blood pressure compared to those without. The women with COVID-19 had a higher frequency of admission to ICU; death; preeclampsia and eclampsia; gestational hypertension; hemorrhage either before or after birth; very premature spontaneous or induced birth; and cesarean section. Rates of pregnancy terminations, stillbirths, gestational diabetes, placenta previa, placental abruption, and blood clots were not increased.
Being aware of these complications is important for health care providers to support pregnant women and provide the best care. The authors believe that although causality cannot be established in this study, vaccination to protect pregnant women from COVID-19 may be useful, particularly for those in higher risk groups.
Author summary
Why was this study done?
- In early 2020, as infection by Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) spread worldwide, it was not known whether pregnant women with Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) were at greater risk for maternal morbidities and adverse obstetric outcomes.
- We sought to evaluate in what extent the risk of maternal morbidities and obstetrical adverse outcomes and COVID-19 diagnosis in pregnant women could be associated.
- The possibility of having access to obstetric data of all pregnant women hospitalized in France around childbirth during the first wave of COVID-19, from January to June 2020, through access to data from the National Health Data System, allowed us to obtain results on a large representative national cohort.
What did the researchers do and find?
- We conducted a retrospective analysis of a national cohort of all hospitalizations for birth ≥22 weeks of gestation occurring in France from January to June 2020, using the French national hospitalization database (PMSI).
- Maternal morbidities and adverse obstetrical outcomes with or without COVID-19 were analyzed with a model adjusted on patient characteristics that could be risk factors: maternal age, body mass index, active smoking, parity, history of diabetes or hypertension, multiple pregnancy, and assisted reproductive technique (ART) conception.
- Pregnant women with COVID-19 diagnosis were more likely to be older, have obesity, a multiple pregnancy, and history of hypertension, compared to those without COVID19. Active smoking and primiparity were less frequent among those with COVID- and rates of conception using ART were similar between the 2 groups.
- When compared to the non-COVID-19 group, women in the COVID-19 group had a higher frequency of admission to intensive care unit, mortality, preeclampsia/eclampsia, gestational hypertension, peripartum and postpartum hemorrhage, preterm and very preterm spontaneous and induced birth, and cesarean section. Rates of pregnancy terminations, stillbirths, gestational diabetes, placenta praevia, placenta abruption, and venous thromboembolic events were not increased.
What do these findings mean?
- These findings suggest that pregnant women with COVID-19 disease may have an increased risk of obstetrical morbidities when compared to non-COVID-19 pregnant controls.
- Results of this study may inform prevention and treatment policies for pregnant women with COVID-19.
- In clinical practice, it appears essential to be aware of these complications, notably in populations at known risk of developing a more severe form of infection or obstetrical morbidities and in order for obstetrical units to better inform pregnant women and provide the best care.
- Although causality cannot be established from our study, these findings raise the possibility that vaccination, which can be offered to pregnant women starting from the second trimester according to recommendations of several health authorities, may be useful to protect women from obstetrical excess risk, in particular in high-risk populations.
Epelboin S, Labrosse J, De Mouzon J, Fauque P, Gervoise-Boyer M-J, Levy R, et al. (2021)
Obstetrical outcomes and maternal morbidities associated with COVID-19 in pregnant women in France: A national retrospective cohort study.
PLoS Med 18(11): e1003857. DOI: 10.1371/journal.pmed.1003857
Copyright: © 2021 The authors. Published by PLoS
Open access
Reprinted under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license (CC BY 4.0)
Difference in percentage of serious pregnancy complications in study group.
Data source: Epelboin, S. et al (2021)
What those fundamentalist Christians who support the lunatic antivaxxers, taking their lead from the lying pro-Trump QAnon extremists, need to address is why, when they purport to be pro-life when it comes to a woman's right to choose, they are advocating policies that are now known to put at risk the lives of unborn foetuses, that they allegedly hold to be sacred?
A similar question can be levelled at Creationists who tend to be one and the same as these Christian fundamentalists - why did your putative designer god create a virus that increases the risks to the unborn child when it allegedly holds that life to be sacred?
But, leaving aside the religious fanatics who probably can never be reached with reason, there is now very firm evidence that the benefits to pregnant women and their babies from the vaccination, greatly outweigh any slight risk of rare complications.
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