Pregnant Woman Gets Pregnant Again Alabama

Physicians from the division of maternal-fetal medicine at the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB) recently reported that 39 pregnant women with COVID-nineteen had been admitted to their hospital over the month of August. Of this group, 10 were admitted to the ICU and seven are currently on ventilators.

In an average year -- non during a pandemic -- information technology's not uncommon for UAB's ICU to come across one or ii pregnant patients a calendar month, said Akila Subramaniam, Doctor, in a virtual discussion. But, on peak of these more than routine cases, the ICU has seen "almost a five-fold increment" in the number of meaning patients needing intensive care.

The majority of UAB's significant patients were in their second or third trimester when they were hospitalized. Near were non vaccinated or not fully vaccinated; some had received their first dose within the last couple of weeks before hospitalization.

Earlier this month, the CDC strongly recommended that pregnant women get vaccinated against COVID-19 in the wake of new safety information. Still, statistics evidence that, equally of August fourteen, only 23.viii% of the pregnant population overall have received at least 1 dose of the vaccine.

At a White Business firm COVID-19 Response Squad briefing on Tuesday, Surgeon Full general Vivek Murthy, Dr., underlined the seriousness of getting COVID while pregnant.

"There's a significant increased risk of hospitalization, of ICU stay, of preterm labor and preterm nativity. These are not insignificant risks," he said. "And the best way to reduce your risk, to take intendance of yourself during pregnancy, is to get vaccinated. That'due south why we're working hard to get that message out."

Co-ordinate to recent enquiry, vaccine hesitancy is high among pregnant women, with many citing rubber concerns. Notwithstanding, preprint information have shown no increased risk of spontaneous abortion or miscarriage amid vaccinated women. Additionally, equally reported in a large-scale study published in JAMA Network Open, it was found that meaning women who contracted astringent COVID-19 were ten times more likely to die while hospitalized, and 6 times more likely to deliver preterm.

In Alabama, the charge per unit of severe COVID among pregnant patients is college at present than it was during both final summer'southward peak and during the post-obit spike in the winter, Subramaniam noted.

The COVID positivity rate among meaning patients that have come up through UAB's hospital has increased significantly since June of this year, she added.

Well-nigh all of the meaning women hospitalized due to COVID in the last few months have delivered preterm, Subramaniam said. "And non because they are laboring preterm, but considering we are affecting a preterm birth."

Some of these patients may need to be intubated, she noted. Frequently, this leads to higher rates of intubation failure and "worsening of maternal status," which means commitment is afflicted whenever it needs to happen -- which is likely before term, or 37 weeks.

"We're seeing deliveries at 30 weeks, 32 weeks, 34 weeks, fifty-fifty every bit early as 28 and 26 weeks," she added. "Delivery preterm ... from a resources standpoint is consuming, but commitment less than 28 weeks still has a high rate of neonatal morbidity and risks for prematurity." Nonetheless, the long-term downstream effects of having severe COVID during pregnancy remain unclear at this time, she concluded.

To date, UAB has reported that two pregnant COVID-positive patients died at the hospital; 6 have lost their babies during their second trimester, and three have lost their babies during their third trimester.

Ashley Roman, Physician, a maternal-fetal medicine dr. at NYU Langone Health in New York Metropolis, told MedPage Today that almost all of the COVID-positive meaning patients admitted to her hospital are unvaccinated.

When she treats patients who resist the vaccine, she said she tries to go along the chat data-focused.

"What'southward a niggling bit ironic to me is that these are the women who decline vaccination during pregnancy, but when they get severe COVID, they're willing to accept other medications that we don't have robust data on -- medications like remdesivir or monoclonal antibodies," Roman said.

She added that she ofttimes encounters major misconceptions about the COVID-19 vaccine among pregnant patients, such equally the vaccine causing miscarriage, infertility, and other pregnancy complications. Still, during conversations with patients, she relies on the currently available data.

What does she tell her vaccine-hesitant patients? "The vaccine stays in the arm, the vaccine itself does non cross the placenta," Roman said. "But what it does is it builds a very robust immune response, and those antibodies that the mother builds to COVID -- that'due south what does cross the placenta. And so the vaccine not just protects the mother from getting severe illness in pregnancy, information technology has the potential to protect the baby equally well."

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  Kara Grant joined the Enterprise & Investigative Reporting squad at MedPage Today in February 2021. She covers psychiatry, mental wellness, and medical education.

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Source: https://www.medpagetoday.com/special-reports/exclusives/94193

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