Pregnant women with COVID-19 face an increased risk of complications from the illness, including preterm birth, delivery by cesarean section, and, compared with other women of the same age, higher likelihood of death or admission to an intensive care unit.
But nearly a year into the pandemic, it can still be difficult for some pregnant women to get COVID-19 testing on a regular basis. To understand more about the impact of the virus on pregnant women, researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis have received a $791,317 grant from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to study factors that keep pregnant women from getting tested for COVID-19, to evaluate whether it is important to test women regularly during their pregnancies, and to determine whether pregnant women with COVID-19 need more specialized prenatal care.