A study published in the American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology suggests that pregnant women with symptomatic COVID-19 had a heightened risk of developing pre-eclampsia, and the risk was shown to increase with disease severity.

Researchers conducted a retrospective observational study that looked into the data from 14 National Health Service (NHS) maternity hospitals in the UK. Overall, 1,223 women were included in the study. Of these, 4.2% had pre-eclampsia, 1.3% had a miscarriage, and 17.6% were noted to have preterm birth. Ten (0.82%) fetal deaths were reported. Among the 51 cases of pre-eclampsia, 21 were diagnosed prior to SARS-CoV-2 infection (removed from further analysis), 7 were diagnosed at the same gestational age, while 23 were diagnosed following the infection. Out of the 30 cases included in the analysis, 13 were found to have preterm (<37 weeks) pre-eclampsia, while 17 had term pre-eclampsia. Overall, 43% of the cases of pre-eclampsia diagnosed after COVID-19 infection were preterm pre-eclampsia. This indicates that COVID-19 may be a cause behind medically indicated preterm birth. On comparing the risk of pre-eclampsia between asymptomatic patients and patients with symptomatic COVID-19, after adjusting for differences in the prior risk of pre-eclampsia, researchers noted that severe COVID-19 was tied to a higher risk of pre-eclampsia (adjusted risk ratio [RR] 4.9)… (DG Alerts)