Risk for Long COVID Lower in Pregnant Individuals

WEDNESDAY, April 9, 2025 (HealthDay News) — The risk for long COVID among pregnant individuals is lower than among matched nonpregnant women, according to a study published online April 1 in Nature Communications.

Chengxi Zang, Ph.D., from Weill Cornell Medicine in New York City, and colleagues compared long COVID risk in individuals with severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) infection during pregnancy versus reproductive-age women infected outside of pregnancy. The analysis included 29,975 pregnant individuals (aged 18 to 50 years) with SARS-CoV-2 infection in pregnancy identified from the National Patient-Centered Clinical Research Network (PCORnet) and 42,176 from the National COVID Cohort Collaborative (N3C) between March 2020 and June 2023.

The researchers found that at 180 days after infection, estimated long COVID risks for those infected during pregnancy were 16.47 per 100 persons in PCORnet and 4.37 per 100 persons in N3C. Risks were lower compared with matched nonpregnant individuals in both datasets (adjusted hazard ratios for long COVID were 0.86 and 0.70, respectively). Black race/ethnicity, advanced maternal age, first- and second-trimester infection, obesity, and comorbid conditions were risk factors for long COVID.

“The similar patterns and triangulation from different long COVID definitions across two different cohorts further strengthen the confidence in these findings,” the authors write.

Abstract/Full Text