[Pregnancy with new coronavirus infection: clinical characteristics and placental pathological analysis of three...

Objective: To investigate the clinical characteristics and placental pathology of 2019-nCoV infection in pregnancy,and to evaluate intrauterine vertical transmission potential of 2019-nCoV infection. Methods: The placentas delivered from pregnant women with confirmed 2019-nCoV infection which were received in the Department of Pathology, Union Hospital, Tongji Medical College, Huazhong University of Science and Technology by February 4, 2020 were retrospectively studied. Their clinical material including placental tissue and lung CT, and laboratory results were collected, meanwhile, nucleic acid detection of 2019-nCoV of the placentas were performed by RT-PCR. Results: Three placentas delivered from pregnant women with confirmed 2019-nCoV infection, who were all in their third trimester with emergency caesarean section. All of the three patients presented with fever (one before caesarean and two in postpartum), and had no significant leukopenia and lymphopenia. Neonatal throat swabs from three newborns were tested for 2019-nCoV, and all samples were negative for the nucleic acid of 2019-nCoV. One premature infant was transferred to Department of Neonatology due to low birth weight. By the end of February 25, 2020, none of the three patients developed severe 2019-nCoV pneumonia or died(two patients had been cured and discharged, while another one had been transferred to a square cabin hospital for isolation treatment). There were various degrees of fibrin deposition inside and around the villi with local syncytial nodule increases in all three placentas. One case of placenta showed the concomitant morphology of chorionic hemangioma and another one with massive placental infarction. No pathological change of villitis and chorioamnionitis was observed in our observation of three cases. All samples from three placentas were negative for the nucleic acid of 2019-nCoV. Conclusions: The clinical characteristics of pregnant women with 2019-nCoV infection in late pregnancy are similar to those of non-pregnant patients, and no severe adverse pregnancy outcome is found in the 3 cases of our observation. Pathological study suggests that there are no morphological changes related to infection in the three placentas. Currently no evidence for intrauterine vertical transmission of 2019-nCoV is found in the three women infected by 2019-nCoV in their late pregnancy.