Monday 18 October 2021, 12.57 pm
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UTRECHT – Relatively many pregnant women who contract the corona virus have ended up in intensive care in recent months. Although the number of hospital admissions was much lower in the summer and autumn months than during the spring, the pregnant women who ended up in hospital with Covid-19 were more likely to be in bad shape.
“I think there is a strong connection with the emergence of the Delta variant”, professor of obstetrics Kitty Bloemenkamp of UMC Utrecht confirms to ANP after reporting by Trouw. “This is also apparent in British research. There, even one in five corona patients in the IC is now a pregnant woman. We do not see this in the Netherlands, but we do see that more of the women who are admitted end up in the IC. .”
Diseases and Complications
Of the 82 women hospitalized between July and early October, 22 had to go to intensive care (27 percent). Before the Delta variant took over, that percentage was considerably lower: around 16 percent, according to Bloemenkamp. These figures come from the national registration system NethOSS. In that system, serious illnesses and complications related to pregnancy are monitored.
Another five women were admitted to an obstetric high care (OHC) unit during the same period. “Those women are really seriously ill. They just don’t need to be on a ventilator just yet, like on the IC, but they do need a lot of extra care and extra oxygen,” explains the professor.
Not vaccinated
In absolute terms, the numbers of admissions are not that high, but Bloemenkamp sees a clear trend, certainly in combination with the experiences in the United Kingdom. The women who end up in the hospital are usually not vaccinated. This applies in any case to the large majority of all corona patients who are admitted, as was apparent from RIVM figures last week.
“We see that certain groups are not well reached,” says Bloemenkamp. She is referring to women with a non-Western migration background and women from the Bible Belt, the area where a relatively large number of people live who reject vaccination on the basis of their Protestant Christian faith. In addition, some women are afraid of adverse effects.
Bloemenkamp emphasizes that vaccination is safe and the best way to prevent infection. She sees progress in that. “I’m hopeful that more pregnant women, or women who want to get pregnant, will get vaccinated,” she says. However, precise figures on the vaccination coverage among women expecting a baby are not available.
