Pregnant Women Should Be Considered High Risk For COVID-19, Study Finds

A Umatilla County, Oregon family is left grieving after their newborn baby son died two days after being born prematurely.

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The mother says she didn’t get to touch or see her son before he died.

A new study from the University of Washington shows pregnant women are at more risk for COVID-19 than we once thought.

“We learned that pregnant women have higher infection rates than people of a similar age in Washington state,” Dr. Kristina Adams Waldorf, a professor of obstetrics and gynecology at the University of Washington, said.

The study found that pregnant women have a 70% higher infection rate.

Putting them at higher risk are common pregnancy issues like weight gain, high blood pressure and diabetes.

“Pregnant women that acquire COVID-19 are at higher risk for dying. We just published a study in the American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology, and in Washington state, one in 80 women died that acquired COVID-19,” Adams Waldorf said.

One in 10 pregnant women with COVID end up in the hospital, according to Adams Waldorf, who headed the study.

And COVID can lead pregnant women to even have pre-term births which, Adams Waldorf says, can be risky for babies and their mothers.

“There's certainly a big spectrum there with some infants who are very preterm, really fighting for their lives, and in the neonatal intensive care unit and others that are much closer to term, doing very well,” Adams Waldorf said.

She says her findings lead her to believe pregnant women should be moved up on the list for the COVID-19 vaccine.

In Washington, pregnant women are part of group 1B 3, only if they have an underlying condition. In Oregon, she says they have been looked over thus far.

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