According to a study conducted in California, pregnant women who were diagnosed with Covid-19 during their pregnancy had a higher risk of premature and very premature labor.
Should you get vaccinated against Covid-19 when you are pregnant? In France, since last April, pregnant women can be vaccinated from the second trimester of pregnancy . If some fear repercussions on their health and that of their child, it seems increasingly obvious that pregnant women are much more sensitive to the risks induced by the disease.
A few days ago, an analysis of all pregnant women with Covid-19 in the UK, for example, showed that they are at risk of developing severe forms of the disease, especially with the Delta variant. "Getting vaccinated is the best way to protect yourself and your baby from Covid-19, it's as simple as that “, then underlined the director of the Royal College of Midwives in the United Kingdom in a press release
A new large-scale study, published in the journal Lancet Regional Health — Americas, also makes the case for vaccination in pregnant women.
As part of this work led by Deborah Karasek, an epidemiologist at the University of California, San Francisco, the researchers analyzed the records of all women who gave birth in California between July 2020 and January 2021. This represents 204,157 births recorded.
During this research, the team divided births into four categories:very premature birth (before 32 weeks), premature birth (between 32 and 37 weeks), at early term (between 37 and 38 weeks) and finally full term births (between 39 and 44 weeks).
Based on analysis, women who reported a diagnosis of Covid-19 on their baby's birth certificate had a 60% increased risk of very premature birth compared to those who were not diagnosed. A large majority of these women also suffered from comorbidities such as high blood pressure, diabetes and obesity. Researchers also recorded a 40% increase in premature births and a 10% increase for early term births.
According to Dr. Karasek, the sharp increase in the risk of very preterm birth is of particular concern. Indeed, this category carries the highest risk of complications and death in the infants involved.
Because the study only relied on birth certificate data, the researchers do not know when these women contracted the virus. Moreover, the certificates also gave no details on the severity of the disease. However, "probably not all of them were serious infections “, emphasizes Dr. Karasek. "So this indicates that there may be a relationship with preterm birth, even for milder infections or even asymptomatic infections."
As the study period ended in January, it is still too early to examine the impact of vaccines on the risk of premature births induced by infection with Covid-19. However, for Dr. Karasek, the results of this study should strongly encourage pregnant women to get vaccinated. “I think vaccination is a very important tool we have to reduce Covid infection and the severity of infection which could also mitigate premature births “, she said.
