COVID-19: Babies born to mothers infected with the virus are generally fine

According to the first report of infant outcomes up to 8 weeks of age in this country, infants born to women with COVID-19 showed few adverse outcomes.

The study, led by researchers at the University of California, San Francisco, suggests that babies born to mothers infected with the virus generally become healthy 6 to 8 weeks after birth, but if the mother is: , Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU) hospitalization rate was reported 2 weeks before delivery COVID-19 was present

In this study, among 263 infants, adverse outcomes such as preterm birth, hospitalization in the NICU, and respiratory illness were found in mothers who tested positive for SARS-CoV-2 and mothers who gave birth on a negative test. There was no difference between them. Pneumonia and lower respiratory tract infections have not been reported until 8 weeks of age.

The study is published as a pre-published manuscript Clinical infections..

“Baby is doing well and that’s great,” said Valerie J. Flaherman, MD, an associate professor of pediatrics and epidemiology and biostatistics at UCSF. “When the coronavirus first hit, there were a lot of weird and unfortunate problems associated with it, but there was little information about how COVID-19 affects pregnant women and their newborns. This is good news because I didn’t know what to expect. “

The prospective study is part of a UCSF-led national project called PRIORITY (Pregnancy Coronavirus Results Registry), which began in March 2020 shortly after the pandemic in the United States. The project is aimed at pregnant women with suspected COVID-19 and aims to better understand how pregnant and postnatal women and their babies are affected by the virus.

Pregnant women are known to have altered immune systems that may increase their risk of illness from the flu virus. In past outbreaks, women who had the flu during pregnancy were at increased risk of hospitalization, miscarriage, or stillbirth, and babies were more likely to have birth defects.

Studies have reported that mothers’ SARS-CoV-2 infection increases the risk of preterm birth and can be transmitted from mothers to babies, but the overall risk of babies is unknown and COVID-19 Little information is available on the effects on babies as they grow up.

A new paper reports childbirth between 179 mothers who tested positive for SARS-CoV-2 and 84 mothers who tested negative. Births occurred in more than 100 US hospitals. On average, the mother was about 31 years old. Of the women who tested positive, 146 (81%) were symptomatological. Of the negative tests, 53 (63 percent) were symptomatic.

Of the total of 263 babies, 44 were admitted to the NICU, but no pneumonia or lower respiratory tract infections were reported during the study. Of the 56 babies evaluated for upper respiratory tract infections, two were reported in COVID-positive mothers and one in COVID-negative mothers.

In babies born to mothers who tested positive, the estimated incidence of positive SARS-CoV-2 tests in babies was as low as 1.1%, and COVID did not affect those babies, the authors said.

“Overall, the first findings regarding infant health are encouraging, but it is important to note that most of these births are due to late pregnancy infections.” UCSF science. “Results from our complete cohort provide a complete picture of risk during pregnancy.”

Two infants born to mothers who were positive in the third semester were reported to have birth defects, each with multiple birth defects (one in the heart, spine, and so on. Abnormalities in the kidneys and lungs, and the other had abnormalities in the face, genitals, kidneys, brain, and heart). One mother who tested negative reported an infant with gastrointestinal, kidney, and heart abnormalities.

Researchers said the findings may help inform national and international guidelines and policies, but also noted the limitations of some studies. Among them, testing for infectious diseases can be biased by false-positive or false-negative results. They also said in the survey that Latina and blacks were undervalued, and in May PRIORITY launched a new project to increase the enrollment of undervalued groups.