ABSTRACT
Background & Purpose: Pregnant women with COVID-19 are at higher risk of severe disease than non-pregnant women of the same age1,2. Unvaccinated individuals are at substantially greater risk3,4. Much data published focuses on women hospitalized with moderate to severe infection. Outcomes of pregnant women with mild COVID-19 managed in the community are less well described, in part due to the system by which UK COVID results were reported. This study aims to analyze maternal outcomes of women with COVID-19, particularly those with mild infection, and look at patterns of vaccination and infection in Oxfordshire, UK. Method(s): This is a regional population-based prospective observational cohort study of 1012 pregnant women with COVID-19. Community and hospital cases were reported to a central database and electronic patient records used to collect demographic and pregnancy outcome data. This enabled a large cohort of women with mild COVID-19, managed in the community, to be assessed who may have otherwise not been included in analysis. Result(s): We found 96.6% of our patients had mild COVID-19 and did not require admission to hospital. Data shows that in Oxfordshire the population is older, with fewer women from black and minority ethnicities than COVID-19 data published nationally3. There are also lower rates of smoking and obesity. 62% of the cohort were vaccinated but when analyzed by ethnicity, only 28% of Black women and 49% Asian women were vaccinated. Most patients requiring admission to hospital were unvaccinated. Of those community cases with mild COVID-19 there were no adverse maternal outcomes reported. Conclusion(s):We demonstrate that COVID-19 in pregnancy frequently presents as a mild infection with no adverse maternal outcomes. High vaccination rates and a predominantly Caucasian population are likely to have been protective in our Oxfordshire cohort. Promotion of COVID-19 vaccine uptake particularly amongst groups most at risk is essential.