COVID-19 deadly among pregnant women with high risk factors

Dr. Natalia Beer

The death of new mom thirty-year-old Verna Gladden has left many pregnant women concerned about delivering these babies during this pandemic. So, today the Ministry of Health’s Technical Advisor in the Maternal and Child Health Unit Dr. Natalia provided critical information about COVID-19’s impact on the health of pregnant women or new moms.

Dr. Natalia Beer, Technical Advisor, Maternal & Child Health Unit

“At the beginning we were saying that the data was showing that the risk was not higher because of a woman being pregnant. Now with the latest reports that are coming out, although we cannot foresee that there is a strong or robust data showing us the risk for pregnant women, we have to use what is there available. And from the database from the U.K. and form the U.S. and we are talking about 15000 cases of pregnant women with COVID 19 in the U.S., the data is showing that women beyond 35 years of age have greater risk if they become pregnant. The risk increase if they have chronic disease, like chronic lung disease, diabetes, heart disease, that increase the risk of COVID 19 during pregnancy and more than likely they would require hospitalization. Two receptors are present in the nose, in the lunch, in the eye, in the heart, the small intestine, the liver, pancreas, the brain, kidney and bladder, prostate and even in the placenta. So knowing that these cells that facilitate the entry of the virus into the body are present in these organs then we move from what we thought was just a lung problem, a respiratory disease to a systemic disease. Hence the reason we need to look at all of these different factors when managing patients.”