Among 80 asymptomatic pregnant women admitted to Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, none tested positive
FRIDAY, May 22, 2020 (HealthDay News) — At the Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles, none of 80 asymptomatic women admitted to the labor and antepartum units tested positive for severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), according to a research letter published online May 19 in Obstetrics & Gynecology.
Following a recent report describing a 13.5 percent rate of SARS-CoV-2 infection among asymptomatic pregnant women in New York City, Mariam Naqvi, M.D., and colleagues from the Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles, changed their policy on April 4, 2020, from testing only women with symptoms of COVID-19 infection to testing all pregnant women admitted to the labor and antepartum unit for SARS-CoV-2. Eighty-two pregnant women were tested during a one-week period; of these women, 77 and five were admitted to the labor and antepartum units, respectively.
The researchers found that one of the two women who reported COVID-19 infection symptoms on intake tested positive for SARS-CoV-2. None of the remaining 80 asymptomatic women tested positive for SARS-CoV-2 and all remained free of symptoms throughout their hospitalization. No postpartum readmission occurred.
“Our findings suggest that the decision to implement universal testing for SARS-CoV-2 infection for all pregnant women admitted to the hospital should take into account information on local rates of infection, assuming these data are available and reliable,” the authors write.
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