Temporal Trend in SARS-CoV-2 Symptoms in Pregnant Women

Author(s):  
Viktoriya London ◽  
Matthew J. Blitz ◽  
Rachel Solmonovich ◽  
Michael Silver ◽  
Howard Minkoff

Objective The objective of this study was to examine temporal trends in the clinical presentation of patients diagnosed with severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) in pregnancy. Study Design This is a retrospective cohort study of pregnant women who were universally screened for SARS-CoV-2 and tested positive. This multi-center study of admissions to labor and delivery units in New York City and Long Island included all SARS-CoV-2-infected pregnant women admitted to labor and delivery units between April 10th and June 4th 2020. Six Northwell Health hospitals and Maimonides Medical Center were included in the study. The main measures of the study included patient reports of COVID-19 symptoms: fever, cough, chest pain, shortness of breath, nausea, vomiting, and intensive care unit (ICU) admissions. The main outcome measure was the percentage of all infected women who reported any of the above symptoms. Results In total, 427 infected pregnant women were included in the study. There was a statistically significant decline in the percentage of patients presenting with any symptoms over the course of the study. In addition, disease severity, symptoms of fever, cough, and chest pain/shortness of breath also significantly declined over time, and no ICU admissions were noted after the third week of April. Conclusions There was a temporal shift away from symptomatic presentation in pregnant women diagnosed with SARS-CoV-2 over the course of the first months of the epidemic in New York. Further studies are necessary to elucidate the cause of this change in presentation among pregnant women, to determine whether this trend is also observed in other patient populations. Key Points

PEDIATRICS ◽  
1979 ◽  
Vol 64 (6) ◽  
pp. 949-951
Author(s):  
Carol H. Leonard ◽  
Nancy Irvin ◽  
Roberta A. Ballard ◽  
Carolyn Ferris ◽  
Ronald Clyman

In an effort to shift the focus of hospital birth toward a more family-centered, natural process, an Alternative Birth Center (ABC) was opened in May 1976, at Mount Zion Hospital and Medical Center, San Francisco. Its purpose is to provide a safe, comfortable environment in which women can labor and deliver their infants.1 In order to also bring in families who would have had home births, the setting has been made as much like home as possible. Pregnant women may choose whom to have present at birth. In the ABC, as in other alternative birth settings, many parents are insisting on having their other children present at the birth of a sibling (New York Times, July 12, 1977, p 34; March 17, 1978, section 2, p 4).


2020 ◽  
Vol 7 (11) ◽  
Author(s):  
Tatyana Kushner ◽  
Claire Park ◽  
Dana Masand ◽  
Brian Wagner ◽  
Marie Grace ◽  
...  

Abstract Background Rates of hepatitis C virus (HCV) among women of childbearing age have increased as a result of the opioid epidemic, especially in the nonurban white population. Recently updated US Preventative Services Task Force and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention guidance have recommended universal HCV screening during pregnancy, but obstetrics societies have not yet endorsed this recommendation. We evaluated the seroprevalence of HCV among pregnant women in an inner-city population, compared rates with other sexually transmitted infections (STIs) screened for during pregnancy, and evaluated factors associated with HCV positivity. Methods We performed a prospective seroprevalence study of consecutive labor and delivery admissions (both antepartum complications and delivery admissions) by testing serum samples for HCV antibody over 9 months at 2 major hospital settings in New York City. Results Fifty-six of 7373 (0.75%; 95% confidence interval [CI], 0.57–0.98) patients screened positive for HCV, with 28 of 4013 (0.70%; 95% CI, 0.46%–1.01%) and 28 of 3413 (0.82%; 95% CI, 0.55%–1.18%) at each hospital. Forty-one percent of HCV-positive patients had any reported HCV risk factors. Hepatitis C virus-positive patients were less likely to have private insurance and more likely to have a history of cannabis, cocaine, and injection drug use (P < .001). The HCV rates were higher among antepartum admissions compared with delivery admissions and higher than that of hepatitis B virus (0.65%; 95% CI, 0.48–0.86), human immunodeficiency virus (0.27%; 95% CI, 0.16–0.42), and syphilis (0.16%; 95% CI, 0.08–0.28). Conclusions We found a higher than expected HCV seroprevalence among pregnant women and higher than most other STIs routinely screened for in pregnancy. Most patients had no risk factors. These findings support universal screening for hepatitis C during pregnancy.


2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Wanhua Xie ◽  
Yunhe Gao ◽  
Weichi Tan

BACKGROUND In the conventional method, the blood pressure values of pregnant women were measured by nurses in the obstetrics outpatient clinics, and then were entered into the computer system.The pregnant women should wait for long time to complete this process.We hypothesized that the self-service blood pressure measurement by pregnant women could be a better option rather than measuring the blood pressure by nurses. OBJECTIVE This study aimed to analyze the effect of self-service blood pressure measurement in obstetrical outpatient clinic on waiting time, satisfaction of pregnant women and outpatient volume, and provide reference for the optimization of outpatient service processes. METHODS This was a cross-sectional study. The waiting time and satisfaction degree of pregnant women, as well as the outpatient volume in the Obstetrics Outpatient Clinic were compared on the use of self-service blood pressure measurement system with the conventional method. A total of 519 pregnant women in the obstetrics outpatient clinics of Guangzhou Women and Children’s Medical Center in China participated in the satisfaction survey. The sample means were compared with t-test. RESULTS Compared to wait a longer queue for blood pressure measured by nurses, after using the self-service blood pressure measurement system, the waiting time of pregnant women for blood pressure measurement was significantly reduced from (18.57±9.68) min to (2.39±1.96) min (P<0.001). In addition, the satisfaction degree of pregnant women was significantly increased (P<0.001), and the monthly outpatient volume was significantly increased (P=0.02,P<0.05). CONCLUSIONS This study showed that after implementation of self-service blood pressure measurement, the waiting time of the pregnant women for blood pressure measurement was decreased significantly, while the satisfactory degree and outpatient flow were increased significantly, improving the cost-effectiveness.Therefore, this method is worth to be popularized in clinical practices. Relevance to clinical practice: How to use medical intelligence in clinical practices, replace manual works by self-service devices to address the high outpatient flow, high work load of medical personnel, and improve the experience of patients in seeking medical services are the most concerned issues by both patients as well as hospital managers.This study demonstrated that the self-service blood pressure measurement as a promising strategy in clinical practices and provided reference for the optimization of outpatient service processes. CLINICALTRIAL This study was approved by the Ethics Committee of the Guangzhou Women and Children’s Medical Center (approval number:SFE-KL-46401; Supplementary file 4). All the pregnant women included in this study signed the informed consent form.


2020 ◽  
Vol 48 (9) ◽  
pp. 892-899
Author(s):  
Ashlesha K. Dayal ◽  
Armin S. Razavi ◽  
Amir K. Jaffer ◽  
Nishant Prasad ◽  
Daniel W. Skupski

AbstractThe global spread of the SARS-CoV-2 virus during the early months of 2020 was rapid and exposed vulnerabilities in health systems throughout the world. Obstetric SARS-CoV-2 disease was discovered to be largely asymptomatic carriage but included a small rate of severe disease with rapid decompensation in otherwise healthy women. Higher rates of hospitalization, Intensive Care Unit (ICU) admission and intubation, along with higher infection rates in minority and disadvantaged populations have been documented across regions. The operational gymnastics that occurred daily during the Covid-19 emergency needed to be translated to the obstetrics realm, both inpatient and ambulatory. Resources for adaptation to the public health crisis included workforce flexibility, frequent communication of operational and protocol changes for evaluation and management, and application of innovative ideas to meet the demand.


Author(s):  
Kevin Hauck ◽  
Katherine Hochman ◽  
Mark Pochapin ◽  
Sondra Zabar ◽  
Jeffrey A Wilhite ◽  
...  

Abstract Objective New York City was the epicenter of the outbreak of the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic in the United States. As a large, quaternary care medical center, NYU Langone Medical Center was one of many New York medical centers that experienced an unprecedented influx of patients during this time. Clinical leadership effectively identified, oriented, and rapidly deployed a “COVID Army”, consisting of non-hospitalist physicians, to meet the needs of this patient influx. We share feedback from our providers on our processes and offer specific recommendations for systems experiencing a similar influx in the current and future pandemics. Methods In order to assess the experiences and perceived readiness of these physicians (n=183), we distributed a 32-item survey between March and June of 2020. Thematic analyses and response rates were examined in order to develop results. Results Responses highlighted varying experiences and attitudes of our front-line physicians during an emerging pandemic. Thematic analyses revealed a series of lessons learned, including the need to: (1) provide orientations, (2) clarify roles/ workflow, (3) balance team workload, (4) keep teams updated on evolving policies, (5) make team members feel valued, and (6) ensure they have necessary tools available. Conclusions Lessons from our deployment and assessment are scalable at other institutions.


2020 ◽  
Vol 20 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Lauren E. Schlichting ◽  
Tabassum Insaf ◽  
George Lui ◽  
Ali Zaidi ◽  
Alissa Van Zutphen

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert P Lennon ◽  
Theodore J Demetriou ◽  
M Fahad Khalid ◽  
Lauren Jodi Van Scoy ◽  
Erin L Miller ◽  
...  

ABSTRACT Introduction Virtually all hospitalized coronavirus disease-2019 (COVID-19) outcome data come from urban environments. The extent to which these findings are generalizable to other settings is unknown. Coronavirus disease-2019 data from large, urban settings may be particularly difficult to apply in military medicine, where practice environments are often semi-urban, rural, or austere. The purpose of this study is compare presenting characteristics and outcomes of U.S. patients with COVID-19 in a nonurban setting to similar patients in an urban setting. Materials and Methods This is a retrospective case series of adults with laboratory-confirmed COVID-19 infection who were admitted to Hershey Medical Center (HMC), a 548-bed tertiary academic medical center in central Pennsylvania serving semi-urban and rural populations, from March 23, 2020, to April 20, 2020 (the first month of COVID-19 admissions at HMC). Patients and outcomes of this cohort were compared to published data on a cohort of similar patients from the New York City (NYC) area. Results The cohorts had similar age, gender, comorbidities, need for intensive care or mechanical ventilation, and most vital sign and laboratory studies. The NYC’s cohort had shorter hospital stays (4.1 versus 7.2 days, P &lt; .001) but more African American patients (23% versus 12%, P = .02) and higher prevalence of abnormal alanine (&gt;60U/L; 39.0% versus 5.9%, P &lt; .001) and aspartate (&gt;40U/L; 58.4% versus 42.4%, P = .012) aminotransferase, oxygen saturation &lt;90% (20.4% versus 7.2%, P = .004), and mortality (21% versus 1.4%, P &lt; .001). Conclusions Hospitalists in nonurban environments would be prudent to use caution when considering the generalizability of results from dissimilar regions. Further investigation is needed to explore the possibility of reproducible causative systemic elements that may help improve COVID-19-related outcomes. Broader reports of these relationships across many settings will offer military medical planners greater ability to consider outcomes most relevant to their unique settings when considering COVID-19 planning.


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