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COVID-19 increases pregnancy complications AKU contributed to a global study that found COVID-19 is a major threat to pregnant women and newborns

Pregnant women who contract COVID-19 face a much higher risk of serious pregnancy-related complications, according to an 18-country study to which AKU contributed. The study was one of the first to quantify the effects of COVID-19 in pregnancy and to provide robust evidence for the potential need to vaccinate pregnant women.

The study found that infected women were 22 times more likely to die and 50 percent more likely to experience pregnancy-related complications than expecting women unaffected by COVID-19. Infection increased the risk for pre-eclampsia/eclampsia, severe infections, admission to an intensive care unit, preterm birth and other complications. Newborns of infected women were nearly three times more likely to experience severe complications, such as admission to a neonatal intensive care unit.

Researchers enrolled 2,130 women from 43 hospitals in low-, middle- and high-income countries. Each woman affected by COVID-19 was compared to two non-infected pregnant women giving birth at the same time in the same hospital. The risk of complications was especially high in women experiencing fever and shortness of breath, a finding that researchers said should influence clinical care. The study, known as INTERCOVID, was led by the University of Oxford.

Twelve percent of babies born to women with COVID-19 tested positive for the virus. Caesarean delivery was associated with a positive neonatal test for the virus. Breastfeeding was not. AKU recruited over 300 pregnant women in Pakistan to the study. Pakistani women with COVID-19 and their babies had better outcomes than those elsewhere, with fewer pre-term births, intensive care unit admissions and other adverse incidents.

“Our findings merit further exploration as to why mothers and newborns in Pakistan fared better than in the rest of world,” said Associate Professor Shabina Ariff, primary investigator of the study in Pakistan.

The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has recommended vaccination for pregnant women. The World Health Organization has advised vaccination for pregnant women “when the benefits … outweigh the potential risks.”