COVID-19 and pregnancy: Lessons from 2020

Early Hum Dev. 2021 Nov:162:105460. doi: 10.1016/j.earlhumdev.2021.105460. Epub 2021 Sep 1.

Abstract

The outbreak and spread of the coronavirus disease 2019 pandemic has led to an unprecedented wealth of literature on the impact of human coronaviruses on pregnancy. The number of case studies and publications alone are several orders of magnitude larger than those published in all previous human coronavirus outbreaks combined, enabling robust conclusions to be drawn from observations for the first time. However, the importance of learning from previous human coronavirus outbreaks cannot be understated. In this narrative review, we describe what we consider to the major learning points arising from the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic in relation to pregnancy, and where these confound what might have been expected from previous coronavirus outbreaks.

Keywords: Coronavirus; Fetal; Maternal; Morbidity; Mortality; Perinatal; SARS-CoV-2; Transmission; Vaccine.

Publication types

  • Review

MeSH terms

  • COVID-19 / epidemiology*
  • COVID-19 / prevention & control
  • COVID-19 / transmission
  • Female
  • Humans
  • Infectious Disease Transmission, Vertical / statistics & numerical data
  • Pregnancy
  • Pregnancy Complications, Infectious / epidemiology*
  • Pregnancy Complications, Infectious / prevention & control
  • Pregnancy Outcome / epidemiology
  • Vaccination / statistics & numerical data