[ad_1]
RResearchers have found that SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes Covid-19, during pregnancy was not associated with complications in the newborn.
For the study, published in the journal JAMA, the research team examined the association between a positive SARS-CoV-2 test during pregnancy and complications in mothers and their newborn babies.
Nearly two in three pregnant women who tested positive for SARS-CoV-2 were asymptomatic, and the researchers found no higher prevalence of complications during delivery or poor health in newborns.
However, preeclampsia was more common in infected women.
“One possible reason for the latter is that both pre-eclampsia and Covid-19 impact multiple organs and can present similar symptoms.”
said the study’s lead author, Mia Ahlberg, from Karolinska University Hospital in Sweden.
Researchers have collected the data and linked it to data from the Swedish Pregnancy Registry of the 2,682 women who gave birth at the hospital between March 25 and July 24, 2020.
To investigate the association between test positivity and medical outcomes in both the mother and the newborn, the researchers compared women with positive tests with women with negative tests.
A total of 156 women (5.8 percent) tested positive for SARS-CoV-2. Of these women, 65% were asymptomatic.
Do you want to read more in Hindi? Check out: Sp Balasubramanian dies from Kovid-19
The fact that the majority of test-positive pregnant women were asymptomatic is consistent with the results of other investigations in which screening has been used.
There were no statistically significant differences in terms of mode of delivery, bleeding, epidural use, preterm delivery, length of hospital stay, or breastfeeding between infected and uninfected women.
There were also no differences between the groups with respect to the infants’ Apgar scores or birth weight.
Women who tested positive for the new coronavirus had, for reasons that are not yet clear, a lower prevalence of induced labor and a higher prevalence of pre-eclampsia.
Read also: Why are the chairman of the California Democratic Progressive Caucus and his allies attacking other Democrats?
The fact that most of the women who tested positive were asymptomatic likely affects the study results, the researchers wrote.
“The proportion of women with symptoms was too small to be able to investigate whether these women are at increased risk of complications.”
Ahlberg said.
“Larger studies need to be done to be able to identify whether women with symptoms and different degrees of symptoms constitute a risk group for adverse outcomes such as preterm birth,” he noted. (IANS)
