For a study, researchers sought to determine if the pregnancy was an independent risk factor for in-hospital mortality in women of reproductive age who are hospitalized with coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) viral pneumonia. In the Premier Healthcare Database, they conducted a retrospective cohort analysis (April 2020–May 2021) of 23,574 female inpatients aged 15–45 years with an International Classification of Diseases, Tenth Revision, Clinical Modification diagnostic code for COVID-19 discharged from 749 U.S. hospitals. They chose patients with symptomatic COVID-19 based on a viral pneumonia diagnosis. Using propensity score-matched conditional logistic regression, investigators looked at the links between pregnancy and in-hospital mortality, ICU hospitalization, and mechanical ventilation. Age, marital status, race and ethnicity, Elixhauser comorbidity score, payer, hospital number of beds, the season of discharge, hospital region, obesity, hypertension, diabetes mellitus, chronic pulmonary disease, deficiency anemias, depression, hypothyroidism, and liver disease were all taken into account when matching models.
In-hospital death occurred in 1.1% of pregnant patients and 3.5% of nonpregnant patients hospitalized with COVID-19 and viral pneumonia (propensity score-matched odds ratio [OR] 0.39, 95% CI 0.25–0.63). Pregnant and nonpregnant patients were admitted to the ICU at rates of 22.0 and 17.7%, respectively (OR 1.34, 95% CI 1.15–1.55). Mechanical ventilation was utilized in 8.7% of both pregnant and nonpregnant patients (OR 1.05, 95% CI 0.86–1.29). Mortality was reduced in pregnant patients compared to nonpregnant patients (OR 0.33, 95% CI 0.20–0.57), despite mechanical ventilation rates were comparable (35.7% vs 38.3%, OR 0.90, 95% CI 0.70–1.16). Pregnant patients with mechanical ventilation had a lower risk of in-hospital death than nonpregnant patients (0.26, 95% CI 0.15–0.46). Despite a greater likelihood of ICU admission, pregnant patients with COVID-19 viral pneumonia had decreased in-hospital mortality compared to nonpregnant patients, and the findings remained after propensity score matching.
