First follow-up of art pregnancies in the context of the COVID-19 outbreak

Abstract

Objective: The aims of this study were to follow up the monitoring, health and anxiety from women who became pregnant after an embryo transfer or a intrauterine insemination during the COVID-19 epidemic in France STUDY DESIGN: This is a single centre, retrospective study from December 2019 to March 2020 based on a phone call interview using a specific questionnaire sheet specially developed for this study. Questionnaires from 104 pregnant women were completed and descriptive data are then analyzed.

Results: Women with ongoing pregnancies (n = 88) did not change their physician visits. The COVID-19 outbreak has created no or few additional stresses for 77 % of pregnant women since the lockdown started. We report a miscarriage rate of 14.4 % (n = 15) and documented 10 patients (11.3 %) who had symptoms related to COVID-19. No severe symptoms and no hospitalization in intensive care unit were identified.

Conclusion: The epidemic context did not disrupt the medical monitoring of pregnancies and we did not recover an increased rate of miscarriage after ART. None of the patients who had COVID-related symptoms presented with severe clinical manifestations. Surprisingly, pregnant women were psychologically able to experience the lockdown.

Keywords: ART Pregnancies; COVID-19; Follow-up; SARS-CoV-2.

Fig. 1

Flowchart of the study. The study period was determined since the first case of COVID-19 had been confirmed in France (12−2-2019) until the suspension of new cycles initiation aimed at achieving pregnancy (3−22-2020). One hundred and twenty-five women who became pregnant during this study period were enrolled. Pregnancy was defined by a blood level of βhCG higher than 100 ng/mL measured three times at 48 -h intervals from the 10th day after embryo transfer.