Covenant HealthCare College of Medicine research cited by the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists

A series of research papers, “Birth Outcomes Following Anti-viral Therapy for Treatment of COVID-19 During Pregnancy,” and “Decreased Newborn Size following COVID-19 Infection during Pregnancy: The Role of Timing of Infection,” has been published by Springer and Thieme, leading global academic and scientific publishers.  These groundbreaking studies include Hannah Yang, a fourth-year medical student, and Dr. Yorsa Elsayed, Class of 2025, from the Covenant HealthCare College of Medicine at Central Michigan University as the lead authors. 

The students worked alongside their advisor and mentor Beth Bailey, Ph.D., professor of psychology and biostatistics and Victoria Zablocki, the coordinator for public population health studies. In the first study, they examined birth outcomes following the use of the antiviral therapy Ritonavir-Boosted Nirmatrelvir (NMV-r) during pregnancy.  After reviewing data from 141 patients who contracted COVID-19 during pregnancy, the study concluded that patients who are pregnant and take NMV-r as treatment for COVID-19 appear to have better birth outcomes than those who do not, with no identified adverse effects in the small sample.

In the second study, they also examined how the timing of maternal COVID-19 infection affected newborn size at birth, and found that infection in later pregnancy was associated with reduced newborn size. The data suggests that the trimester in which a pregnant person contracts COVID-19 may play a critical role in fetal bone growth. The conclusions from both studies are helping inform clinical decision-making and counseling for obstetric patients.

In further acknowledgement of this accomplishment, the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists will cite this research in an upcoming practice bulletin about the effects of COVID-19 during pregnancy and the safety of COVID-19 medications in pregnancy. This significant recognition showcases the impact our students and researchers are having on medical education and patient care on a national scale.

The Covenant HealthCare College of Medicine at Central Michigan University was founded in Mount Pleasant, Michigan, in 2010 and was named by Covenant HealthCare in 2025.  The college will soon be moving to its new home in the CMU MyMichigan Health Medical Education building on the MyMichigan Health campus in Saginaw.