Unvaccinated pregnant women may be more likely to lose their baby if they get COVID-19

Embargoed until: Publicly released: 2022-01-14 09:30

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Pregnant women who catch COVID-19 before giving birth have a higher chance of experiencing stillbirths and the death of their baby in early life, but the chances of these sorts of severe complications are substantially less if they are vaccinated, according to Scottish research. The study found that among pregnant women, 77 per cent of COVID-19 cases and 98 per cent of COVID-19 cases needing critical care admission, as well as all related baby deaths, occurred in pregnant women who were unvaccinated at the time of COVID-19 diagnosis. The study also found that vaccination rates were substantially lower in pregnant women, at around 33 per cent compared to 77 per cent in the general population at the same time. The authors say addressing low vaccine uptake rates in pregnant women is imperative to protect the health of women and babies in the ongoing pandemic.

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From: Springer Nature

1. Epidemiology: Protective effects of COVID-19 vaccination on pregnant women in Scotland *PRESS BRIEFING

The extended perinatal mortality rate for women who gave birth within 28 days of a COVID-19 diagnosis was 22.6 per 1,000 births, compared with a background rate of 5.6 per 1,000 births in Scotland, according to a nationwide study published in Nature Medicine. The findings also reveal that severe complications known to be associated with COVID-19 in pregnancy — including critical care admission and perinatal mortality — were significantly more common in women who were unvaccinated at the time of diagnosis than in vaccinated pregnant women.

Pregnant women do not seem to be more susceptible to SARS-CoV-2 infection than are non-pregnant women, but they are at higher risk of severe COVID-19 disease. However, population-level data on COVID-19 vaccine uptake in pregnancy and SARS-CoV-2 infection outcomes are lacking. To address this, Sarah Stock and colleagues analyzed data collected by the COVID-19 in Pregnancy in Scotland study — a national cohort of all women who were pregnant on, or became pregnant after, 1 March 2020, linked to SARS-CoV-2 infection data and COVID-19 vaccination data. The database tracked 144,546 pregnancies in 130,875 women from 1 March 2020 to 31 October 2021.

The authors found that vaccine coverage was substantially lower in pregnant women (32% in women who gave birth in October 2021) than in the general female population between 18 and 44 years of age (77%), and the percentage of pregnant women vaccinated each month has decreased since August 2021. For vaccinated women, extended mortality rates were similar to background rates among women with no confirmed infection. 77% of SARS-CoV-2 infections and 98% of SARS-CoV-2 infections associated with critical care admission, as well as all baby deaths, occurred in pregnant women who were unvaccinated at the time of COVID-19 diagnosis.

The authors conclude that women should be vaccinated during pregnancy to avoid adverse maternal and neonatal outcomes associated with COVID-19. The authors emphasize the need for continued efforts to increase vaccination uptake in pregnant women.

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conference: Nature Medicine

Research:Paper

Organisation/s: University of Edinburgh Usher Institute, UK

Funder: COPS is a sub-study of EAVE II, which is funded by the Medical Research Council (MR/R008345/1) with the support of BREATHE, the Health Data Research Hub for Respiratory Health (MC_PC_19004; A.S.), which is funded through the UK Research and Innovation Industrial Strategy Challenge Fund and delivered through Health Data Research UK. Additional support has been provided through Public Health Scotland and Scottish Government DG Health and Social Care and the Data and Connectivity National Core Study, led by Health Data Research UK in partnership with the Office for National Statistics and funded by UK Research and Innovation. COPS has received additional funding from Tommy’s charity and support from Sands charity. S.J.S. is funded by a Wellcome Trust Clinical Career Development Fellowship (209560/Z/17/Z). S.V.K. acknowledges funding from an NRS Senior Clinical Fellowship (SCAF/15/02), the Medical Research Council (MC_UU_00022/2) and the Scottish Government Chief Scientist Office (SPHSU17). The funders had no role in the writing of the manuscript or the decision to submit it for publication. B.A. was supported by the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under the Marie Skłodowska-Curie grant agreement No. 813546, the Baily Thomas Charitable Fund TRUST/VC/AC/ SG/469207686, the Data Driven Innovation and the UK Economic and Social Research Council (ES/W001519/1) during the course of this work.

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