Pregnancies and births in times of COVID-19

Abstract

Objective: Identify the profile of births of pregnancies of women with internet access who were infected with SARS-CoV-2 and their outcomes. Methods: Cross-sectional study integrated into a prospective cohort, with collection between August 2021 and February 2022, based on the responses of 304 women who had pregnancies and/or deliveries during the pandemic period. Results: Of the total, 25.7% of the interviewees had COVID-19, with a predominance of diagnoses in the third quarter. Complaints of anosmia, fatigue and headache prevailed as related to the infection. The variables: using the Unified Health System for care (p = 0.084); gestational diabetes (p = 0.141); low birth weight (p = 0.117); need for admission to a neonatal unit (p = 0.120) were included in the regression model because they had p values lower than 0.20. The variable referring to the type of delivery (p=1.000) was inserted in the model because it is a variable of interest and with a description of relevance in the literature. Prematurity was the only variable that was statistically associated with SARS-CoV-2 infection during pregnancy (p = 0.008) in the bivariate analysis, explaining the outcome of infection during pregnancy (<0.001), confirmed in the Poisson Robust Regression model. Conclusion: There was a high prevalence of COVID-19 in the sample, with varying symptoms and a predominance of operative deliveries. However, SARS-CoV-2 infection only explained the higher occurrence of premature births.