Increased risk of early-onset preeclampsia in pregnant women with COVID-19

ABSTRACT

Objective

To estimate incidence, risk of early and late-onset preeclampsia (PE) and understand their relationship with severity of COVID-19.

Methods

Pregnant women with COVID-19 (n = 1929) were enrolled from 1 April 2020 to 24 February 2022. Primary outcome measure was incidence and risk of early onset PE in women with COVID-19.

Results

The incidence of early and late-onset PE was 11.4% and 5.6%. Moderate to severe COVID-19 was associated with eight times higher risk of early onset PE [aOR = 8.13 (1.56–42.46), p = 0.0129] compared to asymptomatic group.

Conclusions

Risk of early onset PE was higher in pregnant women with symptomatic COVID-19 as compared to asymptomatic women.

KEYWORDS:

• COVID-19
• early onset preeclampsia
• first wave, late-onset preeclampsia
• SARS-CoV-2 infection, second wave, third wave

Acknowledgments

The authors thank Network of National Registry of Pregnant women with COVID-19 in India (CTRI/2020/05/025423). Faculties, Resident doctors, and Interns in the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology at TNMC, Mumbai, are sincerely acknowledged.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Author contributions

Niraj N Mahajan and Rahul Gajbhiye contributed to the study conception and design. Material preparation was done by Rahul Gajbhiye and Niraj N. Mahajan. Data collection was done by all authors. Analysis was performed by Periyasamy Kuppusamy, Rahul Gajbhiye and Niraj N. Mahajan. The first draft of the manuscript was written by Niraj N. Mahajan and all authors commented on previous versions of the manuscript. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.

Consent to participate and publish

A waiver of consent was granted as the data was collected from the medical case records.

Ethics Approval

Ethics Committees of TNMC (No. ECARP/2020/63 dated 27.05.2020) and ICMR-NIRRCH (IEC no. D/ICEC/Sci-53/55/2020 dated 04.06.2020) approved the study.

Additional information

Funding

Intramural grant of ICMR-NIRRCH (No. ICMR-NIRRCH/RA/1130/09-2021). Rahul K. Gajbhiye is an awardee of the DBT Wellcome Trust India Alliance Clinical and Public Health Intermediate Fellowship (Grant no. IA/CPHI/18/1/503933).