Research published this Thursday paints a startling picture of the destructive toll that COVID-19 can take on pregnant women. As well as their growing fetuses and placenta.
It is almost the opposite of what we see in other infectious diseases
The virus can attack and destroy the placenta, a vascular organ that serves as the lifeline of the fetus. Leading to asphyxia and stillbirth. This, according to the study published in the journal Archives of Pathology & Laboratory Medicine.
“We have never seen this level of destruction from an infectious disease before. He made the placenta unfit to carry out its functions.” Said Dr. David Schwartz, a perinatal pathologist in private practice in Atlanta, who led the study. “These fetuses and newborns died of asphyxiation from lack of oxygen.”
“It’s almost the exact opposite of what we see in other infectious diseases like Zika, rubella, or syphilis,” he said. “It is not the fetus that is being attacked and destroyed by the virus. It’s the placenta.
The placenta showed a trend: “COVID-19 placentitis”
In the study, Schwartz and his team examined 68 perinatal deaths in 12 countries. All 68 babies were stillborn or died within seven days of birth. They all had mothers who were not vaccinated and had been infected with the coronavirus during pregnancy. Her study included examinations of all 68 placentas, as well as 30 autopsies.
Although no fetal anomalies stood out apart from asphyxia. The placentas showed a trend, which the researchers call “SARS-CoV-2 placentitis.”
It consists of three factors: a buildup of a protein called fibrin, which causes coagulation in the organ’s delicate vascular system; cell death in the protective cell layer of the placenta; and unusual swelling in the placenta.
On average, more than three-quarters of the placenta was so severely damaged that the organ could not supply oxygen and nutrients to the growing baby. In some cases, more than 90% of the placenta was dead.
Fibrin deposition can occur in completely normal, uncomplicated pregnancies, said Dr. Kjersti Aagaard, a professor of maternal-fetal medicine at Baylor College of Medicine and Texas Children’s Hospital, who was not involved in the new study. “But what you don’t see is three-quarters of the placenta filled with these. No fetus can survive that.”
Mild COVID can still cause placental damage
Pregnant people are naturally more susceptible to infections because pregnancy weakens the immune system to prevent a person’s body from attacking the fetus.
“It causes this severe reaction deeper in the respiratory tree. Recovery has been slow, and patients have had this ongoing damage to their lungs that they can’t recover from,” said Dr. Ellie Ragsdale, director of fetal intervention at University Hospitals Cleveland Medical Center, who was not involved in the study. new studio.
But COVID can cause serious problems even in women who don’t have serious illness, Ragsdale said. “The scariest thing about this is that we are seeing it in women who have very mild symptoms of COVID-19. This damage to the placenta may be your only symptom.”
If only a small portion of the placenta is damaged, it may not cause any complications.
But if it’s a larger area, Ragsdale said, “the first thing you’ll see is the baby’s growth restriction and decreased fetal movement. The last thing you see is a miscarriage, and sometimes that progression happens very quickly.”
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