Small studies reinforce the evidence that pregnant women infected with coronavirus may be able to spread it to her fetus.
Italian researchers said they studied 31 COVID-19 women who gave birth on March and April on Thursday. They found signs of the virus in some samples of cord blood, the placenta, and in some cases breast milk.
Women don’t have to panic. “This does not mean that there may be a virus in those places,” said Dr. Claudio Phenizia, a research leader who is an immunology expert at the University of Milan. “It’s too soon to change your mind,” he said.
But it deserves more research, especially among women who are infected early in pregnancy, and are more likely to be infected than those women, at a medical conference held online for a pandemic, a result. Said they had talked to each other.
Since the beginning of the pandemic, doctors have suspected intrauterine infections. HIV, Zika and some other viruses can infect the fetus in this way. Some early reports from China suggested that the coronavirus may also be possible, but doctors suspect that these women may have spread the virus to their babies during or after birth.
The new study included women from three hospitals during a pandemic in northern Italy. Viral genetic material was found in one cord blood sample, two vaginal swabs, and one breast milk sample. The researchers also found specific anti-coronavirus antibodies in cord blood and milk.
In one case, “there is strong evidence to suggest that the newborn was already positive because the virus was found in the cord blood and placenta,” Phenizia said.
In another case, the newborn had antibodies to the coronavirus that did not cross the placenta, so they were not from the mother, but “due to the direct exposure of the fetus to the virus,” Phenizia said.
In any case, he said, the chances of a fetal infection are relatively rare. Only two newborns were positive for coronavirus at birth and neither developed the disease.
Dr. Ashley Roman, a pregnancy specialist at NYU Langone Health, said she and colleagues also detected viral particles on the fetal side of the placenta in some of the 11 cases they examined. The new report adds evidence that intrauterine infections are possible, but it is rare and does not seem to cause serious problems for infants, she said.
“The most important thing a pregnant woman needs to know is to keep a social distance. It’s important to wear a mask and wash her hands.” Although women don’t have to be completely separated from society , I need to worry about how COVID affects my health during pregnancy.”
“It needs to be resolved,” Dr. Anton Pozniak, conference leader and virus expert at Chelsea and Westminster Hospitals in London, said.
“Children under the age of three are rarely ill with coronaviruses,” he said, “if there was a baby infection, it wasn’t harmful.”
UNICEF UNICEF encourages new moms at COVID-19 to wear masks while breastfeeding.
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AP video journalist Kathy Young contributed to the press. You can follow Marilynn Marchione on Twitter at http://twitter.com/MMarchioneAP.
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The Associated Press Health Sciences Department is supported by the Science Education Department of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. AP is solely responsible for all content.
