Maternal mortality associated with COVID-19 in Brazil in 2020 and 2021: Comparison with non-pregnant women and men

Objective
Mortality rates of pregnant and postpartum women grew in the second COVID-19 pandemic year. Our objective is to understand this phenomenon to avoid further deaths.

Methods
We collected data from SIVEP-Gripe, a nationwide Brazilian database containing surveillance data on all severe acute respiratory syndrome caused by COVID-19, between the first notified case (February 2020) until the 17th epidemiological week of 2021. We stratified patients into maternal women (which includes pregnant and postpartum women), non-maternal women and men and divided them by time of diagnosis in two periods: first period (February to December 2020) and second period (the first 17 epidemiological weeks of 2021 before pregnant and postpartum women were vaccinated).

Results
During the second period, all patients had higher risk of presenting severe COVID-19 cases, but the maternal population was at a higher risk of death (OR of 2.60 CI 95%: 2.28–2.97)–almost double the risk of the two other groups. Maternal women also had a higher risk of needing intensive care, intubation and of presenting desaturation in the second period. Importantly, maternal women presented fewer comorbidities than other patient groups, suggesting that pregnancy and postpartum can be an important risk factor associated with severe COVID-19.

Conclusion
Our results suggest that the Gama variant, which has been related to greater virulence, transmissibility and mortality rates leads to more severe cases of COVID-19 for pregnant and postpartum women.