Introduction
In recent months and during the rapid outbreak of corona virus disease
in 2019 (Covid-19) all around the world, many pregnant women, like other
people, have been infected with this deadly virus. Nevertheless, no
adequate data is available on the clinical characteristics,
manifestations, outcomes, and complications of this virus in pregnancy.
Physiological respiratory and non-respiratory changes during pregnancy
can predispose pregnant women to COVID-19 infection and aggravate
outcomes (1). Some physiological changes in pregnancy include decreased
lung volume and functional residual volumes due to diaphragmatic
elevations, airway edema, increased oxygen consumption, hyper
coagulation state, and altered cell immunity. It seems that these
physiological changes can potentially lead to severe pulmonary
infectious diseases during pregnancy.In previous pandemics such as H1N1,
pregnancy increased susceptibility to serious illnesses and higher
mortality rates than the general population (2).A 2009 study found out
that women with H1N1 were four times more likely to be hospitalized(3)
and also maternal mortality rate from the SARS virus has been reported
about 25% (4) Despite this background, the majority of reported cases
of COVID-19 infection in pregnancy have been classified as mild features
of the disease and not more severe than general population(5). Most
previous studies on the virus during pregnancy have been devised in the
form of retrospective studies, case reports and case series. In fact,
available evidence on the effects of the virus on pregnant women is
still insufficient and inconclusive and there is no consensus between
the experts about the virus and pregnancy and also many questions have
remained unanswered and need further investigation. With the advent of
Covid-19 pandemic, a number of articles have been published about this
virus and pregnancy mostly associated with China. At a time that the
virus is spreading swiftly around the globe, there is an inevitably
urgent need for some well-designed studies in different countries based
on diverse nationalities in order to be able to deal with the virus in
pregnant women based on strong and solid scientific evidence. Really as
far as we know, there has not been any prospective study in this area.
so we decided to design a prospective cohort study to compare maternal
and fetal consequences of Covid-19-infected pregnancy with non-infected
pregnancy.