Covid in pregnancy

[DoeG1]

Hi, I am looking at personal experiences or experiences of people you are very close too. Has anyone actually had Covid when pregnant and how did it effect you or the baby, if at all? Was it worse because you was pregnant or can it still be mild? I’m trying to figure out if being pregnant makes you more at risk of complications. Thank you

I had it at 38 weeks and just lost my smell and taste. This was last April though.

I caught Covid same time as conception or shortly afterwards. I got a bad spell of it and was very sick. Sadly I most my baby and I think (also doctor agrees) whilst we can never know the cause this has a high chance of being the reason.

It has scared me shitless and therefore I will be getting my second jab as soon as possible even if I'm pregnant (I was initially reluctant to get it during pregnancy but now see Covid as much much bigger potential risk to an unborn child)

Covid is a horrible illness and I don't think the symptoms are good for an unborn child.

That was supposed to say sadly I lost my baby

I had it in June this year at 12 weeks, caught from DH at home who tested positive the week earlier. No symptoms at all and would never have known I had it if I hadn't been doing daily lateral flow tests as part of the daily testing instead of isolation pilot study and a confirmatory PCR. Did an antibody test a couple of weeks ago and came back positive, so was a definite infection, and most likely to have been Delta variant as it was running rife where we were living at that time. We think we may have had it in March 2020 too but no testing then.

It's absolutely not the case that 1 in 10 pregnant women with COVID require ICU. That's the figure of those who are hospitalised already. We have no data on the number of positive cases in pregnancy in the population who don't require hospitalisation, because pregnancy status isn't being recorded when you're reporting your test. If you don't enter your NHS number when reporting it they have absolutely no way of linking the data to ascertain pregnancy status from your health records.

It's a virus which poses health risks, which seems to affect some pregnant women very severely, but spreading misinformation like the PP did early in this thread is just going to make women who are already likely to be incredibly nervous about their health feel even worse for no reason.

Following with interest. I'm 27 weeks pregnant and just tested positive 😭

@ECPCR2 that's anecdotal evidence of n=1. If 1 out of 10 people have higher risk of covid complications then you are in the 9 out 10 group who don't enter ICU. Still 1 out of 10 is increased odds compared to the population. Also most of the risks are associated with being in third trimester and not the end of first trimester. Hope that makes sense when understanding and interpreting the data. I personally think that pregnant ladies should follow the latest guidelines and listen to the senior midwife who is now advising vaccination instead of going with anecdotal experiences that misses the bigger clinical context.

[quote tikha]@ECPCR2 that's anecdotal evidence of n=1. If 1 out of 10 people have higher risk of covid complications then you are in the 9 out 10 group who don't enter ICU. Still 1 out of 10 is increased odds compared to the population. Also most of the risks are associated with being in third trimester and not the end of first trimester. Hope that makes sense when understanding and interpreting the data. I personally think that pregnant ladies should follow the latest guidelines and listen to the senior midwife who is now advising vaccination instead of going with anecdotal experiences that misses the bigger clinical context.[/quote]
You're incorrect. 10 of 10 that entered ICU from the data that was reported were already hospitalised. I have never been hospitalised with COVID therefore do not factor into the figure whatsoever. I was one of an unknown quantity of non-hospitalised COVID positive pregnant women.

The OP didn't ask for the experiences of women only in third trimester, therefore I was still answering her question with just as valid a response as those who have had more negative experiences or those later in pregnancy. She has confirmed she's read the news reports and guidance that has been published, but still wanted the anecdotal evidence I have provided.

It is an incredibly tricky situation all round. The data upon which the current guidance is based is predominantly real world evidence from the US. It's not collecting anything like the same level of in-depth clinical trial interrogation of all possible health reactions or events that you would have if clinical trials in pregnant women had been completed. It's the best we have currently, yes. And it doesn't currently show an adverse effect of vaccination on the pregnant women or her baby, but it still is nothing like the quality of data we would ordinarily rely upon for providing marketing authorisation of a drug/vaccine. The vaccines don't even have MA for wider population use yet - it's still emergency authorisation.

The research that the BBC news article last week was based on is a really interesting and informative read.

www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.07.22.21261000v1#ref-22

Sorry wrong link above. It's this link I found informative

www.npeu.ox.ac.uk/ukoss/current-surveillance/covid-19-in-pregnancy

@Lullaby88 @Confused521

Here is the latest research. The new delta strain is particularly dangerous in pregnancy.

pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33885740/

@Confused521 The article you have posted that you state is reassuring was published in April. This was before the delta variant was an issue and before full research had been done in pregnant women. The latest figures are horrendous. I’ve posted the updated article of the article that you have posted below.

www.npeu.ox.ac.uk/news/2152-new-data-show-rise-in-hospital-admissions-for-unvaccinated-pregnant-women

Thanks - very helpful! Is there any more info on whether the hospitalised pregnant women largely suffer from co-morbidities (in general but also pregnancy-induced), like with other cases of Coronavirus disease?

@Confused521 There isn’t any official data yet but anecdotally what we are hearing is that a huge percentage are healthy young women who’s only risk factor is pregnancy. The one thing coming out of this is that of all the pregnant women currently in ICU none are fully vaccinated. A small number have 1 vaccine but the vast majority are unvaccinated.

@Confused521 @Madwife123 well the paper you've linked to shows in the breakdown of characteristics towards the end that 2/3 hospitalised (for wildtype, alpha and delta infections) were obese or morbidly obese, which is a known risk factor in the wider population also. Ethnicity doesn't seem to play a major part from the figures given, but I don't know off hand the % breakdown for the general population to know if it's representative of all expected pregnancies or also ties in with wider hospitalisation increases in certain ethnic minorities.

A friend of mine tested positive at 6 months pregnant, symptoms very mild, and a healthy baby later delivered at full term.
So sorry to read of the sad losses some of you have experience

@Madwife123 I’m new here. With the greatest respect and without wanting to be confrontational, you need to be very careful with this sort of language. Especially if you’re not going to quote a source where this sort of information comes from. This sort of language can put the fear of god into people, and if it’s being quoted as mere speculation or “Terry on Facebook said so”, this can be quite frightening to read.

I had to comment to say i think its reasonable of OP to ask for peoples personal experiences as the media can twist things. I am alao interested to hear of other peoples experiences.

Pregnant women were not reallly given much thought last year, we were told we were no more likely to contract covid but third trimester may have more complications... until the vacine was released and approved...

Now every story is how these new varients conveniently mutated and targeted pregnant women, get vaccinated or die scaremongering.

Whilst covid is real and unfortunately people do die, a lot also get mild symptoms, a risk for the individual to make for themselves.

I work in a busy obstetric hospital, we screen everyone who accepts, most of the positives since the start of the pandemic are asymptomatic but i guess they would be recorded as a covid hospitilisation? As they were already in hospital for unrelated reasons. I knew of only one woman who went to ITU and had her baby a few weeks early then made a full recovery.
On the other hand in that time ive met more women admitted to ITU non covid related as pregnancy and birth comes with its own risks.

I had COVID at 32 weeks pregnant. I don’t know if this is related but my baby was born 4 weeks early at 36 weeks. This made him only 5lb 10oz and jaundiced.

I’ve had covid twice, March 2020 and then recently July this year while I was 9 weeks pregnant.
I felt unwell, fatigue, sinus pain, burning nose, cough. However I managed just on paracetamol and rest. Had my first vaccine now.

Pregnant people who are seriously unwell from covid in ICU are not going to comment here? There is a wide variation in outcomes in covid in pregnancy and the Delta variant is causing issues in some women. Better be cautious no?

When you attend hospital with a fear that

a) you could die,
b) your baby could be at risk

your adrenaline will be high/you'll be in fight or flight, your immune system will therefore be compromised and you're more likely to deteriorate.

It is my strong belief that the fact that many vaccinated people are avoiding harsh symptoms and hospital is largely because having the vaccine makes them less focused on symptoms, less fearful, less likely to test and pick up that they have covid, so less likely to be scared they will die, therefore less likely to go to hospital and therefore more likely to just look after themselves at home and get better.

Feels like common sense really. There is a strong link between the power of the mind and the severity of illness.

There will of course be no data around the differences in fear levels and hospital attendance between unvaccinated and vaccinated pregnant women (or people generally) but my guess would be that a big reason vaccinated pregnant women are less likely to end up in hospital is because they are less scared, less likely to test, therefore less likely to pick up that they have it and therefore less likely to go to hospital and more likely to just get better at home. Anecdotal evidence, e.g. conversations with friends, family, clients, supports this.

Side note, I do think if people have underlying health conditions, then they are more likely to get sick, vaccine or no vaccine. My post above applies to ordinarily healthy individuals. Really, if you're healthy, the risk is very low. Worrying all the time is probably more harmful overall.

All just my opinions.

From the royal college of obstetricians and gynaecologists.

"Studies have shown that there are higher rates of admission to intensive care units for pregnant women with COVID-19 compared to non-pregnant women with COVID-19. It is important to note that this may be because clinicians are more likely to take a more cautious approach when deciding whether to admit someone to the intensive care unit when a woman is pregnant."

The following infuriates me. They are scaring us into thinking that having covid risks pre-term birth, but it isn't covid that's causing pre term birth, it's because the care providers put pressure on women who have had covid to deliver early! So the stats aren't natural. There is no way of knowing if those babies would have gone to full term.

"Studies have shown that there is a two to three times increased risk of giving birth prematurely for pregnant women who become very unwell with COVID-19. In most cases this was because it was recommended that their babies were born early for the benefit of the women’s health and to enable them to recover."

www.rcog.org.uk/en/guidelines-research-services/guidelines/coronavirus-pregnancy/covid-19-virus-infection-and-pregnancy/#pregnancy

Though it would be worth updating for my experience having just recovered from COVID. Probably too late for the OP but may be useful to others.

I am not vaccinated and caught COVID from my double vaccinated husband at 23 weeks (now nearly 27 weeks). Our symptoms and illness was almost identical. Horrible cough that kept me awake, blocked nose and fatigue. Oxygen levels were fine throughout.

The illness itself was mild - only as bad as a cold really, although I did take a week off work due to fatigue.

Isolating and not being able to easily get the food and medicine you need was the hardest part.

What I hadn't considered, and what I think is really important to think about for others is how isolating impacts you. I had a consultant appointment. I still went but with precautions. It was horrible. They clearly didn't want me there despite it being arranged specifically. I was worried that if anything happened I wouldn't easily be able to get the advice and care I needed and it was actually really stressful. Not sure it would necessarily impact many people as I ended up needing an emergency cervical stitch at 25 weeks (after I'd recovered from COVID) so had reason to worry for the time I was ill (every time Coughed I worried about it causing cervix to open). No idea if COVID contributed to the cervix shortening but it went from 28mm to 23mm in the 2 weeks I had it (had been shortening for some time).

It's made me seriously consider getting the vaccine when I'm now allowed.