Stillbirths higher among women with Covid, says US study

A US government study has revealed that there is twice as high risk of stillbirth for women who had covid compared to those who were not infected. The risk increased to quadruple during the period when the Delta variant became dominant.

The study that was done by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). The analysis done by CDC was based on more than 1.2 million deliveries that took place between March 2020 and September 2021. The data was taken from a large US hospital database.

The data revealed that overall, stillbirths were highly rare, accounting for 0.65 percent or 8,154 deliveries. CDC when used statistical methods it found that stillbirths were 1.47 times more common among Covid-positive women pre-Delta, 4.04 times higher after, and 1.90 times higher overall. The reason for stillbirths mentioned by the authors is said to be the result of inflammation or decreased blood flow to the placenta.

Pregnant women who had COVID, conditions like chronic high blood pressure, having more than one baby, heart injury, separation of the placenta from the uterus, sepsis, poor blood flow resulting in shock, life-threatening lung injury, and having to go on a ventilator or being admitted to ICU were linked to higher rates of stillbirth.

"Additional studies are warranted to investigate the role of maternal complications from Covid-19 on the risk for stillbirth," they said.

The authors claimed that their study is among the strongest to date linking Covid and stillbirth.

"The current analysis includes an additional year of data, adding to the growing evidence that Covid-19 is associated with an increased risk for stillbirth," the authors wrote.