covid-19 among pregnant women in assiut

Conditions: Covid-19 in Pregnancy

Summary: covid-19 is a new disease , little is known about covid-19 during pregnancy and to the best of our knowledge no published studies in assiut . aims of the research : 1. to describe covid-19 among pregnant women attending isolation and women hospitals in assiut . 2. to identify comorbidities that may affect both maternal , fetal and neonatal outcomes . 3. to correlate between covid-19 infection and maternal, fetal and neonatal outcomes .

covid-19 is the disease caused by a new corona virus on december 2019 in wuhan, china . on february 2020, the international committee of taxonomy of viruses recognized the etiology of this infection and named it "sars-cov-2". world health organization (who) named the disease covid-19 , and declared it a pandemic on march 11th 2020 . pregnant women are at an increased risk for severe illness from covid-19 compared to non-pregnant women . additionally, pregnancy represents a vulnerable period, and this pandemic can negatively impact its outcomes . therefore, pregnant women may be a group requiring special care in relation to the transmission of sars-cov-2 . the modulations of the maternal immune system in pregnancy may have consequences for the clinical course of covid-19 , for the treatment and prevention of covid-19 in pregnancy . in addition to the systemic immunological changes, the reduction in total lung capacity and inability to clear secretions occurring during pregnancy can make pregnant more susceptible to severe respiratory infections . there are higher levels of circulating coagulation and fibrinolytic factors during pregnancy which may be implicated in the pathogenesis of sars-cov-2 infection. covid-19 disease has a similar spectrum of symptoms in pregnant woman as in non-pregnant woman . although most of the symptoms are less frequent during pregnancy but pregnant women are more likely to need admission to an icu and require invasive ventilation . pre-existing maternal comorbidities such as increased maternal age, high body mass index, chronic hypertension and pre-existing diabetes are risk factors for the severity of infection. the overall data from cohort studies by allotey et al. , showed 73 deaths (0.63%) in covid-19 positive pregnant women. the severe form of covid-19 manifested in 13% of pregnant women, admission to an intensive care unit was required for 4% , 3% required invasive ventilation and 0.4% required extracorporeal membrane oxygenation . hsu et al. study on covid-19 symptom progression during pregnancy compared to non pregnant women showed that 8.3% of the covid-19 pregnant women had severe disease of whom 86% progressed to a critical stage and were admitted to the icu , another study by blitz et al. showed no significant difference between the rates of icu admission in hospitalized covid-19 pregnant and non-pregnant covid-19 positive patients . vertical transmission happens if an infected pregnant woman transmits the infection to her fetus / infant during the fetal , intra-partum or post-partum period . kotlyar et al. in their systematic review and meta-analysis showed a pooled proportion of 3.2% for vertical transmission of covid-19 infection . other studies as penfield et al. have shown a linkage of vertical transmission with maternal disease severity .

Eligibility criteria:
inclusion criteria: * pregnant women with confirmed covid-19 in isolation hospitals in assiut recorded and diagnosed by pcr swab from 1/3/2020 until the end of october 2021. exclusion criteria: * pregnant women who are probably or suspected to be infected with covid-19.

Keywords: covid-19 pregnancy