Obstetric Management of COVID-19 in Pregnant Women

Youwen Mei; Dan Luo; Sumei Wei; Xiaoyan Liao; Yue Pan; Xiao Yang; Yonghong Lin

doi:10.3389/fmicb.2020.01186

Obstetric Management of COVID-19 in Pregnant Women

Front Microbiol. 2020 May 26:11:1186. doi: 10.3389/fmicb.2020.01186. eCollection 2020.

Authors

Youwen Mei¹, Dan Luo¹, Sumei Wei¹, Xiaoyan Liao¹, Yue Pan¹, Xiao Yang¹, Yonghong Lin¹

Affiliation

¹ Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, Chengdu Women and Children's Central Hospital Affiliated to University of Electronic Science and Technology of China, Chengdu, China.

Abstract

The 2019 novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19), which is caused by the novel beta coronavirus, SARS-CoV-2, is currently prevalent all over the world, causing thousands of deaths with relatively high virulence. Like two other notable beta coronaviruses, severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus-1 (SARS-CoV-1) and Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus (MERS-CoV), SARS-CoV-2 can lead to severe contagious respiratory disease. Due to impaired cellular immunity and physiological changes, pregnant women are susceptible to respiratory disease and are more likely to develop severe pneumonia. Given the prevalence of COVID-19, it is speculated that some pregnant women have already been infected. However, limited data are available for the clinical course and management of COVID-19 in pregnancy. Therefore, we conducted this review to identify strategies for the obstetric management of COVID-19. We compared the clinical course and outcomes of COVID-19, SARS, and MERS in pregnancy and discussed several drugs for the treatment of COVID-19 in pregnancy.

Keywords: COVID-19; Middle East respiratory syndrome; antiviral drug; obstetric management; perinatal outcome; severe acute respiratory syndrome; vertical transmission.

Publication types

Review