Unvaccinated pregnant women more likely to suffer complications from coronavirus: Study

By Merve Aydogan

ANKARA (AA) - Research recently published in Nature Medicine magazine revealed that unvaccinated pregnant women are more likely to be hospitalized for the coronavirus.

"COVID-19 in pregnancy is associated with increased risk of the pregnancy specific complications pre-eclampsia, preterm birth and stillbirth," according to the monthly research magazine. "SARS-CoV-2 infection and COVID-19 vaccination rates in pregnant women in Scotland," that analyzed data from an 11-month observation of 87,000 pregnant women in Scotland from December 2020 to October 2021.

Noting that pregnant women do not seem to be more susceptible to the virus than non-pregnant women, researchers found that pregnant women are still at "higher risk of severe COVID-19 disease."

They also found that "pregnant women with SARS-CoV-2 infection are more likely to be admitted to critical care, receive invasive ventilation and extracorporeal membrane oxygenation and die."

From December 2020 and October 2021, a total of 2,364 babies were born to mothers with COVID-19 during pregnancy.

"Of these, 2,353 were live births, of which 241 were preterm births," it added.

While the percentage of premature births in the general population was 8%, that rate was 17% in babies born within 28 days of their mothers being infected with the virus.