SARS-CoV, MERS-CoV and SARS-CoV-2 infections in pregnancy and fetal development

Recently, in China, in 2019, a new type of disease has arisen caused by a new strain of coronavirus, the SARS-CoV-2 virus, considered extremely worrying due to its high infectivity power and the easy ability to spread geographically. For patients in general, the clinical features resulting from respiratory syndromes can trigger an asymptomatic condition. However, 25 % of patients infected by SARS-CoV-2 can progress to severity. Pregnant women are an unknown field in this complex process, and although they have symptoms similar to non-pregnant women, some points should be considered, such as complications during pregnancy and postpartum. Thus, the aim of this study was to understand the consequences of pregnancy and fetal development, caused by infections by the SARS-CoV, MERS-CoV and SARS-CoV-2 viruses. Among the aforementioned infections, MERS-CoV seems to be the most dangerous for newborns, inducing high blood pressure, pre-eclampsia, pneumonia, acute renal failure, and multiple organ failure in mother. This also causes a higher occurrence of emergency cesarean deliveries and premature births, in addition, some deaths of mothers and fetuses were recorded. Meanwhile, SARS-CoV and SARS-CoV-2 appear to have less severe symptoms. Furthermore, although a study found the ACE2 receptor, used by SARS-CoV-2, widely distributed in specific cell types of the maternal-fetal interface, there is no evidence of vertical transmission for any of the coronaviruses. Thus, the limited reported obstetric cases alert to the need for advanced life support for pregnant women infected with coronaviruses and to the need for further investigation for application in clinical practice.