Unexpected study: Coronavirus attacks the placenta during the pregnancy

A medical study of 16 pregnant women who resulted in positive COVID-19 found evidence of damage to the placenta, the organ operating as a bowel, kidney, liver, and lungs during pregnancy.

Pathological examinations completed shortly after birth found evidence of insufficient blood flow from mother to fetus and blood clots in the placenta

This may interfere with the role of the placenta in distributing oxygen and nutrients from the mother's bloodstream to the growing child and removing waste products from the baby's blood.

The “are not to be alarmed, but there are findings that concern me” said doctor Northwestern, Dr. Emily Miller, coauthor of the study published on Friday in “American Journal of Clinical Patology”

Despite following only 16 women, the authors said the study is the largest examination of placentat health in women tested positive for Covid-19 done so far.

I don't want to draw comprehensive conclusions from a small study, but this preliminary view of how Covid-19 can cause changes in the placenta carries some significant implications for the health of a pregnancy,” said Miller, an assistant professor of obstetrics and gynecology at the northwest Feinberg University School of Medicine.

From now on we have to change the way we have to monitor pregnant women now”, Miller said. This can be done by testing the oxygen shipment to the placenta during pregnancy and following baby growth in fetuses through ultrasound.