Health Experts From CDC Claim Delta Variant Might Be Linked To Elevated Risk Of Stillbirth Among Pregnant Women

The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has done two stories that have shown that women who are pregnant and have been diagnosed with COVID19 infection linked to delta variant might be at a greater risk of stillbirth or death during childbirth. These studies support the reports from health care providers across the US who have noted that there is a record increase in the number of pregnant women falling severely sick with COVID19 infection since the highly transmissible variant has started spreading in the US. The chief of the fetal intervention from UK Cleveland Medical Center, Ellie Ragsdale has said that experts have been seeing many pregnancy complications due to COVID19 infection. She has said that some of these complications are premature deliveries, pregnancy loss, and oddly high blood pressure among women who are infected with the SARS-CoV-2 virus as well. Dr. Ellie Ragsdale has not been part of the research. One of the new studies from the CDC has looked at the results of more than 1.2 million pregnancies across the United States from March 2020 to September 2021. The authors of the study have specified that stillbirth has been rare in the country before the COVID19 pandemic has hit the US. They have said that the rate of stillbirth has been around 0.59 percent. When the pandemic has hit the United States, the rate of stillbirth has been almost similar at 0.64 percent in pregnant women who have not been infected with the virus. However, as per the CDC report, the rate of stillbirth has shot up to 0.98 percent in pregnant women during the pandemic. The authors of the study have said that once the delta variant has started circulating in the country in July this year, the rate of stillbirth has drastically increased. Nearly 2.7 percent of COVID19 positive pregnancies have resulted in stillbirths.

The authors of the study have claimed that, though overall stillbirth has been a rare outcome, known COVID19 diagnosis during pregnancy has been linked to a marked rise in the risk for stillbirth. The association has been even stronger during the period when the delta variant of coronavirus has been more prevalent in the United States. Health experts have said that the findings of the study do not confirm that the delta strain leads to an increased number of fetal demise; however, obstetricians have been reporting visible differences in how much oxygen fetuses can take in depending on whether mothers have been infected with the SARS-CoV-2 virus. Dr. Ellie Ragsdale has said that she and her counterparts have found that pregnant women who have been infected with the virus go through a hard time getting oxygen-rich blood to their developing fetuses. She has claimed that experts have seen regions in the placenta that are deprived of oxygen. Health care providers have said that the placenta is the source of oxygen and survival during pregnancy. The authors of the study have not assessed the vaccination status of pregnant women. However, they have said that pregnant women who are not immunized against the disease might be at specific risk of stillbirth. The findings of the studies have shown that when the delta strain has taken over the United States, fewer than a third of expectant women have been immunized against COVID19. The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has revealed that out of 34016 pregnant women who have been down with COVID19; around 348 women have lost their pregnancies. Health experts have said that the SARS-CoV-2 virus can be quite risky for mothers as well, especially if they have some underlying health issues as well.

Another report that has been done by experts from the CDC has looked at 15 deaths that have taken place in COVID19 positive pregnant women in Mississippi. The authors of this report have found that all these women have had some kind of underlying health problems such as high blood pressure or diabetes. These pregnant women have not been inoculated against the disease, said the experts. In the month of September, the officials from the CDC have issued a health alert advising pregnant women to be immunized against the deadly virus as soon as possible. The deputy chief medical health officer of the March of Dimes, Dr. Zsakeba Henderson has said that there is a growing body of evidence that shows that COVID19 shots are not linked to an elevated risk of miscarriage or poorer pregnancy effects. In a new study, scientists have found that a plant-based antiviral drug might be effective against all infectious strains of COVID19 including the delta variant. Scientists from the University of Nottingham in the UK have said that the delta variant has the greatest ability to replicate itself in human cells. The contagious strain is quite effective in infecting neighboring healthy cells as compared to other strains of recent times. In the case of co-infections caused by two diverse variants, the delta variant can amplify the ability of replication of its co-infected partners as well. The authors of the UK study have said that a natural antiviral drug that is known as thapsigargin (TG) is quite efficient in treating patients who are infected with new variants of COVID19 including the delta strain. Previous studies as well have shown that the plant-based antiviral treatment can prompt massively potent broad-spectrum host-centered antiviral natural immune reaction against three major respiratory pathogens along with the SARS-CoV-2 virus. The authors of the new study have tried to see how well thapsigargin will work against three more contagious variants of COVID19 such as Alpha, Beta, and Delta variants. They have found that all three highly infectious strains of COVID19 have been quite susceptible to the natural antiviral drug TG. They have said that a single pre-disease priming dose of thapsigargin has been able to prevent infections linked to three variants quite effectively.