Findings suggest women with COVID-19 during pregnancy are five times more likely to be hospitalised, and six times as likely to require treatment in intensive care.

New research to be presented at this year’s European Congress of Clinical Microbiology & Infectious Diseases (ECCMID) in Lisbon, Portugal (23-26 April), suggests that pregnant women are at markedly greater risk of severe illness if they contract COVID-19 than non-pregnant women of child-bearing age. The findings are independent of key risk factors including age, underlying illnesses, vaccination status, and infecting variant.

Importantly, the findings also indicate that women were half as likely to be hospitalised after just one dose of the COVID-19 vaccine, and even less likely with two or more doses. Similarly, women were more than half as likely to be admitted to the intensive care unit (ICU) when they had one dose of the vaccine, and even less likely with two or more doses.

The time-matched cohort study by Kiera Murison and colleagues from the University of Toronto, which included information on more than 13,600 women from Ontario’s Case and Contact Management database, is unique because each pregnant woman affected by COVID-19 was compared to five non-pregnant women of reproductive age with COVID-19, matched by test date of positive SARS-CoV-2 infection.

The researchers say that the findings emphasise the importance of pregnant women getting vaccinated against COVID-19.

Pregnancy is associated with increased vulnerability to severe outcomes from infectious diseases, both for the mother and developing infant. The COVID-19 pandemic may have important health consequences for pregnant women, who may also be more reluctant than non-pregnant people to accept vaccination.

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