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Pregnant women are advised to maintain their normal safety practices in relation to Covid-19 and to contact their GP if they have specific concerns following preliminary reports of four potentially Covid-19-related stillbirths.
A rare condition called covid placentitis is a coronavirus infection of the placenta in pregnant women who have Covid-19. Coroners have tentatively linked him to four stillbirths here, although his reports are not finalized.
- Eleven cases of covid placentitis were reported internationally up to November 2020;
- The four stillbirths in Ireland are yet to be confirmed as being linked to the virus.
Deputy Chief Medical Officer Dr. Ronan Glynn said it is Nphet’s policy to inform the public of any changes to the Covid-19 situation in Ireland, even when the data is provisional.
He called on women to maintain their normal safety practices in terms of avoiding Covid-19, emphasizing that they do not need to change their behaviors.
He said, “I would tell women that it doesn’t mean they have to do something different than what they have been doing, if women have specific concerns, they should talk to their GP.”
Alerts have already been sent to maternity hospitals and GPs through HSE’s National Women and Babies Program and the Institute of Obstetrics and Gynecology.
He said two of the stillbirths took place this year.
“We know from international data that this is a very rare condition,” he said. “We would not expect to see a high incidence in this country, these findings are preliminary.”
Dr. Cliona Murphy, president of the Institute of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, said that a small number of stillbirths potentially associated with a condition called covid placentitis in mothers who recently had Covid-19 are being scientifically investigated:
“The vast majority of pregnant women who have had Covid have had mild symptoms and have had no adverse outcomes. Large-scale surveillance data in the UK has not shown an increased incidence of stillbirth.”
Research conducted on covid placentitis at Cork University Maternity Hospital (CUMH) and published in the medical journal says it is a “rare but distinctive complication of maternal Covid-19 infection.”
The authors say there were only 11 cases reported internationally. They found that the majority of women who develop Covid-19 during pregnancy test positive.
They said: “This would be in line with the apparently low rates of fetal complications and vertical transmission reported to date.”
A Cork woman who developed this condition received a cesarean section at CUMH. Both mother and baby were well enough to go home eight days after birth, according to the study.
This year has been particularly difficult overall for pregnant women and their families, Children’s Minister Roderic O’Gorman said yesterday.
She told Dáil that many women have experienced major milestones like 12- or 20-week scans or even the birth of their child alone:
“The strength shown by pregnant women during this pandemic has been remarkable,” O’Gorman said during last night’s debate in Dáil about the impact Covid has had on women.
Meanwhile, Health Minister Stephen Donnelly has announced that people with underlying conditions will begin receiving their Covid19 vaccine next week following updated advice from the National Advisory Committee on Immunization.
Stephen Donnelly said: “It is a complex group: there is planning and participation in the HSE, working out the details of how these patients will be contacted and, indeed, where they will be vaccinated,” he told Dáil.
People between the ages of 80 and 84 will also begin receiving invitations to attend the vaccination starting this week.
Donnelly said about 500,000 vaccines will be administered by the end of the week, but admitted there are challenges with uncertain supplies from AstraZeneca.
“I certainly remain concerned about AstraZeneca’s ability to deliver on time and deliver agreed volumes.”
However, he added that Ireland has always had one of the fastest deployments anywhere in the European Union.
You can read the CUMH study in ‘Placenta’, the medical journal.
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