Ottawa research looking at affect of COVID-19 on pregnant moms and their babies
Posted Jun 25, 2020 08:28:00 PM.
A pair of Ottawa researchers are looking to find out how COVID-19 is affecting pregnant women and their babies.
Drs. Darine El-Chaâr, Marc-André Langlois and their team say they plan to address this knowledge gap through several large studies.
One study will determine the rate of COVID-19 infection in pregnant women, by testing every woman who delivers a baby at The Ottawa Hospital. The hospital says understanding this rate of infection will help inform care practices in maternal care centres, including universal testing.
The team will also study whether a mother can pass COVID-19 to her child during pregnancy by testing maternal and newborn samples from hospitals across Ontario.
The researchers are also expected to collect detailed information from mother-baby pairs with a history of COVID-19 infection, including symptoms and their severity, complications, treatment strategy, transmission patterns and newborn management.
The Ottawa Hospital says these findings will inform care practices, as well as informing evidence-based counselling to families about maintaining the health and safety of their newborns.
“Our findings will help us understand the impact of COVID-19 on pregnant women and their babies and help us optimize care during pregnancy,” explains Dr. El-Chaâr, physician and clinician investigator at The Ottawa Hospital and assistant professor at the University of Ottawa.
The Ottawa Hospital announced Thursday, June 25 that it had been awarded $4.7-million for COVID-19 research from the Canadian Institutes of Health Research. The projects focus on vaccine development, cell therapy, pregnancy, marginalized populations, emergency medicine and blood clots.
This particular project is getting $796,000.
