Coronavirus, Good news on pregnancy

Pregnancy

NHS

Pregnant women have been included in the list of people at moderate risk (clinically vulnerable) as a precaution

CDC

Pregnant people might be at an increased risk for severe illness from COVID-19 compared to non-pregnant people

May be at increased risk for other adverse outcomes, such as preterm birth.

Healthy pregnant women do not fall more seriously ill from COVID-19

Healthy pregnant women do not differ in how severely they are likely to fall ill from COVID-19

Compared with non-pregnant women.

Community based study

Two groups of pregnant woman

Group 1

4 million UK and 50,000 Swedish users

Group 2

1.9 million women aged 18-44 who responded to the US-based Facebook COVID symptom study

Carnegie Mellon Delphi Research Center

Group 1, UK and Sweden

Self-reported health data from 14,000 pregnant women

Of whom 629 were likely to have COVID-19 based on their symptoms

21 were hospitalised

Compared this with data from 387,000 non-pregnant female app users

25,000 were suspected to have COVID

600 ended up in hospital.

Group 2, US based

1.3 million survey responses from women

Including nearly 42,000 pregnant

2.9% of the pregnant respondents were suspected to have COVID-19

compared with 4% of the non-pregnant women

Symptoms for pregnant women, Groups 1 and 2

Similar to non-pregnant people

Persistent cough, headache, loss of taste or smell (anosmia), chest pain, sore throat and fatigue

but

Increased incidence of gastrointestinal symptoms, nausea and vomiting

In the group of pregnant women who became most severely ill with COVID-19

Which could be confused with similar symptoms that are due to the pregnancy itself

Pregnant women

Tested more frequently for coronavirus

No more likely to suffer severe symptoms of COVID-19

Or be ill for longer than those who weren’t pregnant

In the absence of any other underlying health problems

Pregnant women with existing health conditions

Lung, heart or kidney disease and diabetes

More likely to end up in hospital with COVID-19

Similar to what has been seen for comparable groups in the general population

Zika

Virus disease, Aedes mosquitoes

Mild, fever, rash, conjunctivitis, muscle and joint pain, malaise or headache.

2–7 days

Most asymptomatic

Microcephaly, other congenital malformations

Preterm birth and miscarriage

Neurologic complications, Guillain-Barré syndrome, neuropathy and myelitis

There is no current local transmission of Zika virus in the continental United States, including Florida and Texas, which reported local transmission of Zika virus by mosquitoes in 2016-17