In-hospital mortality low for pregnant women with COVID-19

The rate of in-hospital mortality is lower for pregnant versus nonpregnant women hospitalized with COVID-19 and viral pneumonia, according to a research letter published online May 11 in the Annals of Internal Medicine.

Beth L. Pineles, M.D., Ph.D., from the University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston, and colleagues conducted a retrospective cohort study of patients in the Premier Healthcare Database that captures 20 percent of U.S. hospitalizations. All female inpatients aged 15 to 45 years hospitalized from April to November 2020 with COVID-19 were included; the cohort included 1,062 pregnant and 9,813 nonpregnant patients.

The researchers found that in-hospital death occurred in 0.8 and 3.5 percent of pregnant and nonpregnant patients, respectively, hospitalized with COVID-19 and viral pneumonia. The median time from admission to death was 18 and 12 days for pregnant and nonpregnant patients, respectively. Among patients admitted to an intensive care unit, in-hospital mortality was 3.5 and 14.9 percent in pregnant and nonpregnant patients, respectively. In-hospital death occurred in 8.6 and 31.4 percent of pregnant and nonpregnant patients, respectively, among those who received mechanical ventilation. The nine pregnant women who died ranged in age from 23 to 44 years; eight were non-Hispanic Black or Hispanic. Six women were obese and seven had one or more comorbid conditions.

"In this large, geographically diverse cohort of reproductive-aged patients hospitalized with COVID-19, we found that in-hospital mortality was low in pregnant patients," the authors write.

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