![Unvaccinated Pregnant Moms with COVID-19 and Rheumatic Disease Deliver Premature Babies Unvaccinated Pregnant Moms with COVID-19 and Rheumatic Disease Deliver Premature Babies](https://images.medindia.net/health-images/1200_1000/Pregnancy-Rheumatic-Diseases.jpg)
COVID-19 in Pregnant Moms with Rheumatic Disease
The study’s researchers reviewed data on 73 pregnant patients who were entered in the COVID-19 Global Rheumatology Alliance registry from March 2020 to February 2022 along with follow-up surveys to healthcare professionals. The registry is an international case-reporting registry created at the beginning of the pandemic to help guide medical care for people who had rheumatic diseases or immunosuppression and COVID-19.‘Getting COVID-19 vaccine on time can help pregnant women with rheumatic diseases avoid pregnancy complications like preterm birth and low birth weight.’
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Outcomes were arranged according to the vaccination status of pregnant patients prior to COVID-19 infection. Those who received no vaccine, or one dose were defined as unvaccinated or partially vaccinated. Patients who received two or more doses were defined as fully vaccinated. Of note, none of the participants received the single dose Johnson & Johnson vaccine. Read More..
Lupus was the most common RMD among the 73 pregnant patients (n=17) followed by rheumatoid arthritis (n=16). Nearly 70% of patients were in remission at the time of COVID-19 diagnosis; only 4.1% reported severe disease activity.
At the time data was extracted from the registry, 24.7% of the pregnancies were ongoing, while 50 of 55 completed pregnancies resulted in live births. The rest ended in miscarriage, stillbirth or termination for the patient’s health.
Role of COVID-19 Vaccination in Pregnant Women with Rheumatic Diseases
A majority of women, 44, were unvaccinated when diagnosed with COVID-19; three had received one dose and 26 had two or more doses. COVID-19 hastened delivery in nearly seven percent of unvaccinated women compared to nearly four percent of fully vaccinated women.More striking were differences in neonatal outcomes. Among completed pregnancies, there were more preterm births in unvaccinated compared to vaccinated patients (29.5% vs. 18.2%, respectively). Low birth weight was the most frequent neonatal complication (24% of live births) followed by small for gestational age (14%).
“There is still much that is unknown and poorly understood about the pathogenesis of COVID-19. This is why this study is so important despite the small number of pregnancies included” says Sinead Maguire, MB, BCh, BAO, MRCPI, a rheumatology fellow at Toronto Western Hospital in Canada and the study’s lead author.
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Dr. Maguire notes that in the study, only a few patients needed medication for COVID-19, regardless of vaccination status.
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Dr. Maguire explains that the COVID-19 Global Rheumatology Alliance registry will create a summary of the study results and distribute them to patients and patient advocacy groups to encourage COVID-19 vaccination in rheumatology patients.
“The results can also be used in future studies to further capture the impact of COVID-19 vaccination on pregnancy outcomes in rheumatic disease patients,” said Dr. Maguire says.
The study’s chief limitations were the small number of women and pregnancies included and the inability to adjust for confounding factors such as disease activity, comorbidities and medications. Its strengths include a diverse mix of ethnicities and rheumatic and musculoskeletal diseases, the reliability of the data and the inclusion of vaccination status in the data collection — “factors that provided a unique perspective of pregnancy in women with rheumatic disease in the setting of COVID-19.”
Source-Eurekalert