Maria Alvarez, 24, sits on a sofa holding her 1-day-old daughter, in an isolated area reserved for mothers with COVID-19, at the National Maternal Perinatal Institute, in Lima, Peru, Thursday, July 30, 2020. Alvarez faces the burden of raising her daughter on her own because the baby’s father died of the new coronavirus in June.
Maria Alvarez, 24, sits on a sofa holding her 1-day-old daughter, in an isolated area reserved for mothers with COVID-19, at the National Maternal Perinatal Institute in Lima, Peru, on Thursday, July 30, 2020. Alvarez faces the burden of raising her daughter on her own because the baby’s father died of the new coronavirus in June. Rodrigo Abd, Associated Press
Herb Scribner
By Herb Scribner

A new study from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has found a link between preterm deliveries and the novel coronavirus.

  • The new study — published in JAMA — tracked miscarriages and stillbirths from patients with the coronavirus.

The CDC’s researchers reviewed medical data for about 600 hospital patients between March and mid-August. These patients had tested positive for COVID-19 and were pregnant, too.

  • According to the CDC, 12.6% of 445 births were preterm deliveries — a number that is 25% higher than the normal rate of preterm delivery.
  • 10 patients experienced a miscarriage or stillbirth. But the data “likely underestimates the percentage of pregnancy losses that occur among women with COVID-19,” the report said, according to CBS News.

Preterm births were three times more likely in symptomatic patients than asymptomatic patients, CBS News reports.

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One point to note:

  • The study noted that “hypertension in pregnancy may have been underdiagnosed during the pandemic as women had fewer face-to-face antenatal visits. Other possible explanations include change in referral patterns with more high-risk women referred to St. George’s Hospital or chance due to the short time frame of the study.”
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