Pregnant women don’t seem to be any more susceptible to severe symptoms of Covid-19, compared to the general population and they don’t seem to pass the infection onto their babies, according to a new study,
The small study was published Monday in the American Journal of Obstetrics & Gynecology and looked at data from 43 pregnant women in New York who tested positive for Covid-19 over two weeks between March 13 and 27.
Thirty-seven of the women in the study experienced a mild form of Covid-19, four developed a severe form of the disease and two experienced what researchers called “critical disease.” The percentages are similar to the breakdown of severity in disease in the general population. About 80% experience mild disease, 15% develop severe cases and 5% result in critical cases.
Scientists were interested in the impact of the disease on pregnant women because in prior SARS and H1N1 pandemics, pregnant women were more susceptible to serious forms of the illness and had a greater chance of dying from the infection than the general population.
None of the babies in this study seemed to be infected, based on tests performed on them on the first day of their lives.