This is an archived article and the information in the article may be outdated. Please look at the time stamp on the story to see when it was last updated.

Officials are warning about increasing numbers of pregnant women becoming infected with the coronavirus and being hospitalized.

Los Angeles County reported 81 cases of coronavirus infections among pregnant women for the week that ended July 25, triple the rate from the last full week of June.

And at Hoag Hospital in Newport Beach, doctors are now seeing a higher proportion of pregnant women among their COVID-19 patients, including five who required admission to the intensive care unit, said Dr. Marlon Mills, the director of maternal fetal medicine at Hoag.

Pregnant women are at increased risk of having respiratory illness so severe they need to be sedated and require the insertion of a breathing tube in their throat, Mills said.

Read the full story on LATimes.com.