Risk factors for acute respiratory viral infections in pregnant women. Effectiveness of preventive measures

Objective. To identify risk factors for acute respiratory viral infections (ARVI) (influenza and novel coronavirus infection (NCI) COVID-19) in pregnant women and evaluate the effectiveness of pharmacological prevention. Patients and methods. During the first phase, 152 individual medical records of pregnant women were retrospectively studied: 102 women (the first main group) with acute respiratory viral infections and 50 pregnant women who had no acute respiratory viral infections (the control group). The second phase was a prospective comparative study: the second main group (n = 100) – pregnant women who received recombinant interferon α-2b (IFN-α2b) with vitamins E and C as preventive treatment; the comparison group (n = 100) – without preventive treatment. Results. Risk factors for the incidence of ARVI included anemia (χ2 = 0.003), obesity (χ2 = 0.026), cardiovascular diseases (χ2 = 0.060), diabetes mellitus (χ2 = 0.050), frequent ARVI in medical history (χ2 = 0.028), nicotine intoxication (χ2 = 0.008), urinary tract infections (χ2 < 0.001). The second phase: 10% of pregnant women who received preventive treatment had mild forms of influenza and NCI; 2% of women had a moderate form. In the second main group, 33% of pregnant women were sick (OR = 2.852, 95% CI = 1.354–6.005, χ2 = 0.005): 26% of women had a mild form, 6% of women had a moderate form and 1% of women had a severe form. In the second main group, threatened miscarriage (χ2 < 0.001), preterm birth (χ2 < 0.001), gestational pyelonephritis (χ2 = 0.006), placental insufficiency (χ2 < 0.001), pre-eclampsia (χ2 = 0.006), congenital anomalies of the fetus (χ2 = 0.017) and intrauterine infection (χ2 < 0.001) were more frequent. Conclusions. Among risk factors for ARVI during pregnancy were anemia, obesity, diabetes mellitus, and nicotine intoxication. Preventive treatment with recombinant IFNα-2b with vitamins E and C reduced the incidence of acute respiratory viral infections in pregnant women by 2.8 times and improved perinatal outcomes by 4.7 times. Key words: pregnancy, acute respiratory viral infections, prevention