Pregnancy And COVID-19: What We Know And How To Protect Yourself

Short Wave

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🗓️ 3 August 2020

⏱️ 13 minutes

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Summary

How dangerous is COVID-19 for pregnant women and their babies? The research has been scant and the data spotty. Dr. Laura Riley, the chair of obstetrics and gynecology at Weill Cornell Medicine and the Obstetrician-in-Chief at New York-Presbyterian, explains what we know at this point and what pregnant women can do to protect themselves.

Transcript

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0:00.0	You're listening to shortwave from NPR.
0:05.9	As a high-risk obstetrician, Dr. Laura Riley is used to dealing with her patient's anxiety.
0:12.7	After all, pregnancy can be an anxiety-provoking situation.
0:17.2	But the pandemic has ramped up the level of fear and questions way up.
0:22.2	Am I going to get it?
0:23.6	If I get it, what does that mean?
0:25.8	Am I going to keep my job?
0:27.9	Kind of a life in my, you know, creating for my baby.
0:31.2	Dr. Riley is the chair of OBGYN at Wild Cornel Medicine and the obstetrician in Chief at New
0:37.7	York Presbyterian.
0:39.6	And just like her patients, she's been scrambling to figure out exactly the right things to do.
0:45.7	Literally, policies were changing every single day.
0:50.8	And it was a matter of, what are we learning about this disease?
0:54.5	You know, can you protect the patients?
0:56.1	Can you protect the providers?
0:58.2	It was tiring.
0:59.7	Generally speaking, the research on pregnancy and COVID-19 has not been conclusive so far.
1:06.7	There have been a lot of small studies and in the US, the data has been spotty.
1:12.9	Even a recent CDC report, a study with relatively large sample size of around 8,000 people,
1:19.1	has been difficult to interpret because of gaps in the data.
1:23.3	One thing in medicine is that we like to study things and then we like to get answers
1:29.5	and then we like to operate based on those answers.
	...

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