Even mild Covid-19 during pregnancy ‘exhausts placenta and damages immune response’

Even mild cases of Covid-19 during pregnancy “exhaust” the placenta and damage its immune response, new research suggests.

The findings, which come as coronavirus cases are again on the rise in the UK, lend weight to multiple studies over the course of the pandemic linking the virus to a rise in dangerous pregnancy complications such as pre-eclampsia.

But the results of the study – the largest yet involving the placentas of infected women – may represent the “the tip of the iceberg” of how Covid-19 affects foetal or placental development, warned Dr Kristina Adams Waldorf, the senior author on the study, which was published last month in the American Journal of Obstetrics & Gynecology.

Early in the pandemic, it was widely assumed that the coronavirus did not harm the developing foetus because so few babies were born with the infection, said Dr Adams Waldorf, a professor of obstetrics and gynaecology at the University of Washington School of Medicine.

“But what we’re seeing now is that the placenta is vulnerable to Covid-19, and the infection changes the way the placenta works, and that in turn is likely to impact the development of the foetus,” explained the professor.

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Source: The Independent, 9 October 2022