The Misattributed and Silent Causes of Poor COVID-19 Outcomes Among Pregnant Women.

Abundant evidence strongly suggests that the condition of pregnancy makes women and their fetuses highly vulnerable to severe Corona-virus 2019 (COVID-19) complications. Here, two novel hypoxia-related conditions are proposed to play a pivotal role in better understanding the relationship between COVID-19, pregnancy and poor health outcomes. The first condition, "misattributed dyspnea (shortness of breath)" refers to respiratory symptoms common to both advanced pregnancy and COVID-19, which are mistakenly perceived as related to the former rather than to the latter; as a result, pregnant women with this condition receive no medical attention until the disease is in an advanced stage.