COVID-19 is Associated with Increased Severity in Pregnant Women

Authors

Zahid Imran, University of LouisvilleFollow
Vidyulata Salunkhe, University of LouisvilleFollow
Ahmed A. Eladely, University of LouisvilleFollow
Ahmed Abdelhaleem, University of LouisvilleFollow
Satya Durugu, University of LouisvilleFollow
Daisy Sangroula, Director of OB Anesthesia, Assistant Professor, Department of Anesthesiology & Perioperative Medicine, University of Louisville, Louisville, KYFollow

Funder

The author(s) received no specific funding for this work.

Abstract

Introduction: The COVID-19 pandemic originated in China in late 2019; the number of cases is increasing with 2,104,346 cases and 116,140 deaths in the United States as of June 16, 2020. Pregnant women are a vulnerable population in epidemics or pandemics. This review is designed to look in detail at the severity of COVID-19 in pregnant women compared to non-pregnant women of reproductive age.

Methods: Literature searches on PubMed, Google Scholar, the Lancet, and Web of Science were conducted.

Results: We found evidence of increased risk for severe disease and distinctive symptoms among pregnant women diagnosed with COVID-19 compared to non-pregnant women.

Conclusions: COVID-19 presents in an atypical fashion in pregnant women, with increased severity of symptoms compared to COVID-19-positive non-pregnant women of reproductive age. These findings can help clinicians to recognize the risk posed by COVID-19 in pregnant women.

DOI

10.18297/jri/vol4/iss1/59

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Recommended Citation

Imran, Zahid; Salunkhe, Vidyulata; Eladely, Ahmed A.; Abdelhaleem, Ahmed; Durugu, Satya; and Sangroula, Daisy (2020) "COVID-19 is Associated with Increased Severity in Pregnant Women," The University of Louisville Journal of Respiratory Infections: Vol. 4 : Iss. 1 , Article 59.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.18297/jri/vol4/iss1/59
Available at: https://ir.library.louisville.edu/jri/vol4/iss1/59