Risk Factors, Clinical Symptoms, Laboratory Findings and Imaging of Pregnant Women Infected with COVID-19 in North of Iran

Due to the physiological changes in the body during pregnancy, the increased susceptibility to viral infections during this period and also the high prevalence of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) in the Guilan province, Iran, this study aimed to evaluate risk factors, clinical symptoms, laboratory findings and imaging of pregnant mothers with COVID-19.

In this descriptive study, 70 pregnant women aged 17–41 years with COVID-19 who were hospitalized from early March to late April 2020 were enrolled. Sampling was performed by census and from all hospitals in Guilan. The research instruments included a researcher-made questionnaire, including demographic characteristics, clinical symptoms, medical examinations, and paraclinical results. Data were analyzed with SPSS version 16. Frequency and percent were used to describe qualitative variables; for quantitative variables, if they were normally distributed, mean and standard deviation were used, and if they were non-normal, median and interquartile range (IQR) were used.

The most severe symptoms recorded in mothers at the time of hospitalization were fever (47%), shortness of breath (16%) and cough (15%), respectively. One of 68 (1%) was in the severe stage of the disease and two mothers (2%) were in critical condition and admitted to the intensive care unit and finally died. Fifty-five of 66 women (83%) had lymphopenia, 22 of 42 (52%) tested positive on PCR, and 30 of 33 (90%) had an increase in lactate dehydrogenase (LDH) levels. Results showed that 15 of 32 patients who gave birth had preterm delivery (46%).

The most common manifestations of the disease in pregnant women were fever, cough and shortness of breath, and in some cases muscle pain. The most common laboratory finding in infected mothers was lymphopenia. Complications of pregnancy and childbirth in women included an increase in cesarean delivery