“It was quite scary,” she says. “I felt very exposed.” Blaney, 34, wasn’t the only one in harm’s way; she was already 20 weeks pregnant with her second child. At the time, official advice did not suggest pregnant women were at particular risk from Covid-19. Behind the scenes, however, two men were working on a study that challenged this narrative. After nine months of work, they collated a unique set of data from 18 countries and found Covid-19 has potentially devastating effects on pregnant women and their babies.
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The study was reassuring in that it found pregnant women with Covid-19 who did not have any symptoms were at no greater risk than those without the virus.