Characteristics and Medication Use Patterns of Pregnancies With COVID-19 Ending in Live-Birth in the Sentinel System

Abstract

Background: Pregnant women are at high risk for developing severe illness related to COVID-19. We adapted the "COVID-19 infectiOn aNd medicineS In pregnancy" (CONSIGN) study protocol as part of an international collaboration to examine medication use patterns among pregnancies in the US.

Methods: We identified eligible women aged 12-55 years with documented live-birth deliveries in the Sentinel Distributed Database who had at least one qualifying diagnosis for COVID-19 or a positive-confirmed test for SARS-CoV-2, by trimester of COVID-19 infection. We conducted two sets of analyses comparing medication groups and COVID-19 treatment utilization in the 30 days prior to or after COVID-19 among pregnancies with COVID-19 to: (1) pregnancies without COVID-19 during 6 months prior to or during pregnancy; and (2) non-pregnancy episodes with COVID-19.

Results: From 2020 to 2022, we identified 52 355 pregnancies with COVID-19 matched to 52 355 pregnancies without COVID-19 (assigned same matched COVID-19 date), and 40 518 matched non-pregnancy episodes with COVID-19. Outpatient medication use in the 30 days prior to or after the COVID-19 date (or matched date) was quite low (< 15%) among pregnancies with and without COVID-19. Non-pregnancy episodes with COVID-19 had higher use of all medication groups in 30 days prior to COVID-19. However, in the 30 days post-COVID-19, anti-bacterials, anti-inflammatories such as NSAIDs, and analgesics were more common, and COVID-19-specific medications were less frequently used (< 1%) among pregnancies with COVID-19. Assessing COVID-19 severity, more pregnancies had a non-severe COVID-19 diagnosis than non-pregnancy episodes with COVID-19 (87.2% vs. 79.9%).

Conclusions: In this retrospective evaluation, selected medication utilization was higher post-COVID-19 among pregnancies with COVID-19, compared to those without COVID-19 and to non-pregnancy episodes with COVID-19. However, the low use of COVID-19-specific medications underscores the need for a safety evaluation of therapies used for COVID-19 management in the pregnant population.

Keywords: COVID‐19; Sentinel; outpatient medication use; pregnancy.