Jahangeer Ganaie
Srinagar : Medical experts have said that pregnancy suppresses the immune system, however, it cannot cause death but extra care needs to be taken while treating pregnant women.
Talking to news agency—Kashmir News Observer (KNO), Dr. Nisar Ul Hassan, president doctors association of Kashmir said that as per research pregnant ladies are not at higher risk of Covid-19 than the general population but pregnancy suppresses the immune system and its effect remains very mild and not severe that it can cause death.
He said that doctors need to take precautions in treating everybody at the moment as Covid-19 is in community now and over 90% patients are asymptomatic so you don’t know who is carrying the virus.
“However you need to take extra care in treating pregnant women as pregnant women can be badly affected by some respiratory infections. There is no need to have a separate Covid-19 designated hospital for pregnant ladies if the existing hospital authorities will take all the precautions,” he said
Talking about the recent incident of Kokernag lady, Dr Nisar ul Hassan said that there must a neutral inquiry committee to probe her case and without post-mortem it won’t be possible to know whether she died of Covid-19 or any other ailment.
Meanwhile, medical experts said that all pregnant ladies must be treated as Covid-19 suspect patient and proper must be followed in their treatment.
They said that as per the laid down procedures, the pregnant women in red zones shall be enlisted and their check-up shall be managed at the recently established health centres in red and buffer zones.
Furthermore the proper birth plan shall be executed by ANM and ASHA workers under the supervision of concerned block medical officers as per the Union Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, they said.
They said that the pregnant ladies have been strictly advised to attend anti-natal check-ups at the recently established health centres by ASHAs and their cadres both in red and buffer zones.
According to SOP all the asymptomatic pregnant women shall be tested one week before the expected date of delivery (EDD) using rapid antibody tests.
“If any pregnant woman is found having symptoms of influenza like Illness or severe acute respiratory illness (SARI), she will be tested using RT-PCR,” they said—(KNO)
