A Canadian study shows that pregnant women who are infected and not vaccinated against COVID-19 show a greater risk associated with the disease than those who received the vaccine.
The studying (New window)conducted by researchers at the University of British Columbia and published in Journal of the American Medical Associationanalyzed 6,012 cases of COVID-19 in six provinces among pregnant women in Canada between March 2020 and October 2021. The median age of the female participants in the study was 31 years old.
The study authors compared data from these pregnant women to Statistics Canada data on non-pregnant women aged 20 to 49. Most of them were not vaccinated, the author of study, Dr. Deborah Money, because the vaccine will be offered to pregnant women only from the spring of 2021.
The data confirms what we see [sur le terrain] : more serious consequences in pregnant women compared to non -pregnant women, with significantly higher rates of hospital admissions and intensive care unitsexplained Dr. Money, head of the CanCOVID-Preg program at the University of British Columbia, who studies the impact of COVID-19 on pregnancy nationwide.
The researchers calculated that pregnant women infected with COVID-19 were 2.65 times more likely to need hospitalization and 5.46 times more likely to be admitted to the intensive care unit than women in the group. reference.
Of the 6012 cases evaluated, 7.75% required hospitalization (compared with 2.93% for non-pregnant women) and 2.01% were admitted to intensive care (compared with 0.1% for non-pregnant women).
For women hospitalized in Quebec, British Columbia, Ontario and Nova Scotia, the median length of hospital stay was six days, while it was four days in intensive care.
The authors also found a relatively higher rate of preterm birth in women infected with COVID-19 and not vaccinated. The risk of preterm birth increased to 11% for infected pregnant women, compared with 6.8% for pregnant women who were not infected with COVID-19.
” It’s not just women who get sick. There are side effects for infants because prematurity is associated with a complex number of health problems for infants. “
As in the general population, pregnant women who have been vaccinated are at risk of infection, but are generally well protected from the serious side effects of the disease, the study authors note.
Certain factors such as age, high blood pressure, diabetes and being in an advanced stage of pregnancy also increase the risk of complications in pregnant and infected women.
Finally, the data show that pregnant women from visible minorities are highly represented in terms of infection and hospitalization rates. Recall that several studies have shown that rates of infection and death due to COVID-19 in culturally diverse neighborhoods are higher than those in most white areas.
The authors noted that the study was completed before the Omicron variant arrived. Since then, millions of women in Canada have been infected and the authors point out that the results may not be applicable to the Omicron cases of the last two waves.
With information from CBC News
Source: Radio-Canada
