Page 20 - REAL ISSUES FOR COVID-19 VACCINE IMMUNIZATION & Pregnancy, Breastfeeding Mothers

Earlier Studies…

Unfortunately, ladies and gentlemen, I think we were swayed towards the wrong side. Initial
studies and papers from Wuhan showed that pregnant mothers were actually not at risk when
92% of them had mild diseases, and only a small minority of them had severe diseases.
Following papers from Wuhan also showed that majority of them were asymptomatic, and
only a small minority of 1.9% of them had severe infection. So, ladies and gentlemen, in the
earliest days of COVID-19, we were falsely misinformed about the implications of
COVID-19 in pregnancy.

Figure 6: Misinformation about the implications of COVID-19 in pregnancy from earlier
publications. (Image from Dr. Muniswaran’s slide presentation)

Current evidence from a few large studies and meta-analysis

Let me bring your attention to one large meta-analysis, “Clinical Manifestations, risk factors
and maternal and perinatal outcomes of coronavirus disease 2019 in pregnancy: living
systematic review and meta-analysis” by J Allotey et al. (Figure 7). Now, this is the living
systematic review and meta-analysis published in the BMJ. The last update was three weeks
ago. This is the largest systematic review up to date. It has included 64,676 pregnant women,
569,000 in the reproductive age group. It has included 82 studies and 92 studies related to
outcomes.