Publication:

COVID-19 and pregnancy- review of cases from a tertiary public hospital in Mumbai

Background In December 2019 a novel strain of coronavirus, was first isolated by the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention. This strain connected to the cluster of acute respiratory illness cases from Wuhan, China was later officially named as severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-Cov-2). On 30th January 2020, WHO declared the outbreak of SARS-Cov-2 a public health emergency of international concern, and on 11th March 2020 declared it to be a pandemic. Pregnant women are known to be at higher risk of severe morbidity and mortality from respiratory infections such as influenza and SARS, making a strong case for pregnant women to be considered an at-risk population for COVID-19. This study aimed to assess the clinical picture, obstetric outcome and neonatal outcome in COVID positive pregnant cases.

Methods We did a retrospective observational cohort study in the department of Obstetrics and Gynecology at a tertiary teaching hospital in Mumbai.

Results In the study duration, 148 were diagnosed as COVID positive (~12%). 9 patients had COVID related symptoms on admission. The obstetric outcome in symptomatic patients was noted to be good. We noted 79.01% of the pregnancies reached term. Cesarean section rate in COVID positive patients was comparable to non-COVID patients in the study duration. Neonatal outcome was only 4 babies of COVID positive mothers were diagnosed positive.

Conclusions Our study shows pregnancy outcomes are not significantly worsened by the COVID-19 infection in spite of the risk factors associated with pregnancy per se and influenza infection in pregnancy.