Since our last check-in with the maternity ward at St. Joseph’s Hospital in Syracuse, a sobering statistic was released. The Centers for Disease Control found that expectant mothers with the virus had a 50 percent higher change of being admitted to the ICU, and a 70 percent higher chance of getting intubated.

What You Need To Know

  • Hospitals like St. Joseph's in Syracuse are still doing universal COVID-19 testing for women going into labor

  • Since they started that testing, they've only had two asymptomatic patients out of about 300

  • Nationally, pregnant women with the virus are 50 percent more likely to be brought into the ICU, but in New York State where it's more controlled, that doesn't seem to be the case

“I don’t know that I can really speak to that because our prevalence is so thankfully low in the community we haven’t really been in that situation. We’re prepared, but we haven’t seen it," Dr. Suchitra Kavety, the OB/GYN interim chair at St. Joseph's Hospital says.

Nationally, those numbers are high, and quite frankly, a little scary. However, that doesn’t mean they’re that way in Upstate New Yok.

“Since we started testing every patient that is in labor we’ve had very few asymptomatic positives. In fact, there have been two, and we’ve tested over 300 women. Those patients were asymptomatic, had successful deliveries, went home with their babies and the babies tested negative," Dr. Kavety said.

So why are those percentages so high nationally, but not in Central New York?

"I think locally we’ve been very cautious with our implementation of masking and distancing and quarantining when appropriate," Dr. Kavety says.

Every woman going into labor is being tested for the coronavirus at the hospital. An extra precautionary measure the staff at St. Joseph’s is willing to take.

“Asymptomatic positives, we follow the proper isolation precautions for the staff as we’re monitoring the delivery. Women and their partners are asked to wear their masks as much as possible, but once they get to that second stage of labor where they’re pushing if it’s not comfortable or not feasible they remove their masks and we have on the appropriate PPE," Dr. Kavety says.

Once the baby makes their debut, it doesn’t look much different than a typical recovery situation in the mother-baby unit.

“She wore a mask when feeding the baby. She had the baby in the room with her. We don’t take the baby from her. The testing was done and we followed appropriate hand-washing techniques and six-feet distance as much as we could," Dr. Kavety says.

The hospital has recorded two positive COVID-19 tests, but two positive stories during these unprecedented times.