{"doi":"10.1111/ppe.12808","title":"Severity of illness by pregnancy status among laboratory‐confirmed SARS‐CoV‐2 infections occurring in reproductive‐aged women in Colombia","abstract":"BACKGROUND: Multiple studies have described increased risk of severe coronavirus disease (COVID-19) among pregnant women compared to nonpregnant women. The risk in middle-income countries where the distributions of age groups and preexisting conditions may differ is less known. OBJECTIVES: To determine whether pregnant women with SARS-CoV-2 infection are at increased risk for severe COVID-19 compared to nonpregnant women in Colombia. METHODS: We analysed national surveillance data from Colombia, of women aged 15-44 years with laboratory-confirmed infection with SARS-CoV-2 by molecular or antigen testing, from 6 March 2020 to 12 December 2020. An enhanced follow-up of pregnant women with COVID-19 was established to monitor pregnancy and birth outcomes. RESULTS: Of 371,363 women aged 15-44 years with laboratory-confirmed SARS-CoV-2 infection, 1.5% (n = 5614) were reported as pregnant; among those, 2610 (46.5%) were considered a complete pregnancy for reporting purposes at the time of analysis. Hospitalisation (23.9%) and death (1.3%) occurred more frequently among pregnant symptomatic women compared to nonpregnant symptomatic women (2.9% and 0.3%, respectively). Compared to nonpregnant symptomatic women, pregnant symptomatic women were at increased risk of hospitalisation (adjusted risk ratio [RR] 2.19, 95% confidence interval [CI] 2.07, 2.32) and death (RR 1.82, 95% CI 1.60, 2.07), after adjusting for age, type of health insurance and presence of certain underlying medical conditions. Among complete pregnancies, 55 (2.1%) were pregnancy losses, 72 (2.8%) resulted in term low birthweight infants and 375 (14.4%) were preterm deliveries. CONCLUSIONS: Although pregnant women were infrequently reported with laboratory-confirmed SARS-CoV-2 infection, pregnant symptomatic women with COVID-19 were at increased risk for hospitalisation and death compared to nonpregnant symptomatic women. Almost all infections we reported on were third-trimester infections; ongoing follow-up is needed to determine pregnancy outcomes among women infected earlier in pregnancy. Healthcare providers should counsel pregnant women about preventive measures to protect from SARS-CoV-2 infection and when to seek care.","journal":"Paediatric and Perinatal Epidemiology","year":2021,"id":191234,"datarank":0.0,"base_score":0.0,"endowment":0.0,"self_citation_contribution":0.0,"citation_network_contribution":0.0,"self_endowment_contribution":0.0,"citer_contribution":0.0,"corpus_percentile":null,"corpus_rank":null,"citation_count":13,"citer_count":0,"citers_with_citation_signal":0,"citers_with_endowment":0,"datacite_reuse_total":0,"is_dataset":false,"is_dataset_confidence":0.9622,"is_data_producer":false,"deposit_databanks":null,"is_oa":true,"file_count":0,"downloads":0,"has_version_chain":false,"published_date":"2021-01-01","fair_score":null,"fair_percentile":null,"algorithm_id":"datarank_citation_only_1hop_v6","ranking_scope":"data_only","authors":[{"id":312579,"name":"Diana Valencia","orcid":"0000-0002-9578-3751","position":1,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":378223,"name":"Suzanne Newton","orcid":"0000-0002-1156-3066","position":2,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":312585,"name":"Greace Avila","orcid":"0000-0002-3056-8305","position":3,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":312578,"name":"Maritza González","orcid":"0000-0002-1516-3238","position":4,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":527302,"name":"Christina L. Sancken","orcid":"0000-0002-4795-4675","position":5,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":378225,"name":"Veronica Burkel","orcid":"0000-0002-5637-2693","position":6,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":294983,"name":"Sascha Ellington","orcid":"0000-0002-5584-5006","position":7,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":312581,"name":"Suzanne M. Gilboa","orcid":"0000-0001-7092-6667","position":8,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":756232,"name":"Carol Y. Rao","orcid":"0000-0001-7187-2189","position":9,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":7186,"name":"Eduardo Azziz‐Baumgartner","orcid":"0000-0001-8038-0530","position":10,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":313355,"name":"Martha Ospina","orcid":null,"position":11,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":756233,"name":"F. Alvarado","orcid":"0000-0002-2079-7251","position":12,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":312577,"name":"Van T. Tong","orcid":"0000-0002-3970-1440","position":13,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":756231,"name":"Nathaly Rozo","orcid":"0000-0002-1201-7681","position":0,"is_corresponding":true}],"reference_count":13,"raw_metadata":null,"created_at":"2026-07-18T23:49:31.121780Z","pmid":"34467554","pmcid":null,"fwci":null,"citation_percentile":null,"influential_citations":0,"oa_status":null,"license":null,"views":0,"total_file_size_bytes":0,"version_count":0,"fair_f":null,"fair_a":null,"fair_i":null,"fair_r":null,"fair_zscore":null,"fair_rationale":null,"fair_model":null,"fair_agent_version":null,"fair_fulltext_source":null,"fair_has_llm":null,"fair_computed_at":null,"clinical_trials":[],"software_tools":[],"db_accessions":[],"linked_datasets":[],"topics":[]}