WEDNESDAY, June 10, 2020 (HealthDay News) -- Most pregnant women admitted to U.K. hospitals with confirmed severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) infection have good outcomes, according to a study published online June 8 in The BMJ.
Marian Knight, M.B.Ch.B., M.P.H., from University of Oxford in the United Kingdom, and colleagues used data from the U.K. Obstetric Surveillance System to identify 427 pregnant women admitted to the hospital with confirmed SARS-CoV-2 infection. Outcomes, including vertical transmission, were assessed.
The researchers found that the estimated incidence of admission to the hospital with confirmed SARS-CoV-2 infection in pregnancy was 4.9 per 1,000 maternities. More than half of pregnant women admitted to the hospital with SARS-CoV-2 infection in pregnancy (56 percent) were black or from other ethnic-minority groups. More than two-thirds were overweight or obese (69 percent), 41 percent were ≥35 years, and 34 percent had preexisting comorbidities. Of the women admitted, 62 percent gave birth or had a pregnancy loss, with 73 percent giving birth at term. One in 10 women admitted to the hospital needed respiratory support, and five women died. Five percent of 265 infants tested positive for SARS-CoV-2 RNA, six of them within the first 12 hours after birth.
"Most pregnant women admitted to hospital with SARS-CoV-2 infection were in the late second or third trimester, supporting guidance for continued social distancing measures in later pregnancy," the authors write.
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