Long COVID after SARS-CoV-2 during pregnancy in the United States

Abstract

Pregnancy alters immune responses and clinical manifestations of COVID-19, but its impact on Long COVID remains uncertain. This study investigated Long COVID risk in individuals with SARS-CoV-2 infection during pregnancy compared to reproductive-age females infected outside of pregnancy. A retrospective analysis of two U.S. databases, the National Patient-Centered Clinical Research Network (PCORnet) and the National COVID Cohort Collaborative (N3C), identified 29,975 pregnant individuals (aged 18–50) with SARS-CoV-2 infection in pregnancy from PCORnet and 42,176 from N3C between March 2020 and June 2023. At 180 days after infection, estimated Long COVID risks for those infected during pregnancy were 16.47 per 100 persons (95% CI, 16.00–16.95) in PCORnet using the PCORnet computational phenotype (CP) model and 4.37 per 100 persons (95% CI, 4.18–4.57) in N3C using the N3C CP model. Compared to matched non-pregnant individuals, the adjusted hazard ratios for Long COVID were 0.86 (95% CI, 0.83–0.90) in PCORnet and 0.70 (95% CI, 0.66–0.74) in N3C. The observed risk factors for Long COVID included Black race/ethnicity, advanced maternal age, first- and second-trimester infection, obesity, and comorbid conditions. While the findings suggest a high incidence of Long COVID among pregnant individuals, their risk was lower than that of matched non-pregnant females.