Increased spontaneous preterm births during the second wave of the coronavirus disease 2019 pandemic in India

Objective To compare spontaneous preterm birth (SPTB) and iatrogenic preterm birth (IPTB) rates during both waves of the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic. Methods Retrospective analysis of the PregCovid registry of pregnant women with COVID-19 was performed at a dedicated COVID-19 hospital in Mumbai, India. The data of 1630 women were analyzed for this study between April 4, 2020 and July 4, 2021. Prepandemic data were analyzed and compared with pandemic data. Main outcome measure was spontaneous preterm birth rate. Results Preterm deliveries were higher during the second wave (46/329; 14%) compared with the first wave (82/807; 10.2%) of the COVID-19 pandemic (P = 0.065). Higher SPTBs were reported during the second wave than the first wave (12.5% versus 8.3%) (P = 0.03) as well as the prepandemic period (12.5% versus 10.5%) (P = 0.286). IPTBs were significantly lower in the pandemic period than in the prepandemic period (1.8 versus 3.3) (P = 0.012). Conclusion In Mumbai, India, we found an unusual change in SPTBs during the 6 months of the second wave of COVID-19 compared with the previous 10 months of the first wave of pandemic and 1 year of prepandemic.