by: brodie thomas
a calgary doctor who specializes in prenatal care says alberta hospitals have seen an increase of pregnant individuals seeking non-prenatal care in the past three weeks.
dr. eliana castillo is a clinical associate processor for the department of obstetrics and gynecology at the university of calgary’s cumming school of medicine as well as the alberta lead for the cancovid-preg study.
that effort monitors cases of covid-19 in pregnant women across canada.
here in alberta, a team lead by castillo and her colleague verena kuret has collected data that shows 1,440 pregnant women have tested positive for covid-19 since the start of the pandemic.
during the first and second wave, the province was seeing as many as between 20 to 50 cases of covid-19 in pregnant individuals per week, but the new b.1.1.7 variant appears to be causing a spike.
in her latest data, 85 to 95 pregnant women from across alberta tested positive within one week, and more than 60 per cent of those cases were the b.1.1.7 variant.
the new variant of concern appears to be causing more health issues for pregnant women than the original strain, according to castillo
“(on thursday), three covid-19 pregnant patients were admitted to the hospital for pneumonia. last week, two pregnant patients went to the icu for complications caused or worsened by covid-19 infection, and 22 visited the emergency room for the same reason” said castillo. “that’s not what we saw in the first wave or what we used to see in the spring before the pandemic.”