18 Dec 2020 9:40:05 p.m.
Here is what a new study says. (Source: Getty Images / Thinkstock)
Scientists have evaluated pregnant patients who have been admitted for COVID-19 and have found antibodies against the novel coronavirus in umbilical cord blood, suggesting that transfer immunity from mothers to babies.
The study, published in The Annals – the official medical journal of the Medical Academy, Singapore – periodically sampled from 16 pregnant patients admitted for COVID-19 to four tertiary hospitals in Singapore.
According to the research, there was no evidence that the coronavirus was transmitted from mother to child through breast milk or placenta.
In the study, the scientists performed SARS-CoV-2 RT-PCR tests on maternal blood and vaginal swabs, amniotic fluid and umbilical cord blood (UCB), and swabs of the placental and umbilical cord surfaces.
The researchers, including those from Singapore General Hospital, noted that the majority of pregnant women had only a moderate infection and only two, who had risk factors such as obesity and old age, which were associated with severe disease.
None of the women died, the study noted.
Five pregnancies gave birth to term life and two participants gave birth spontaneously at 11 and 23 weeks of pregnancy.
The scientists said one patient was still positive for SARS-CoV-2 infection up to 80 days after the initial symptoms but said that prolonged peeling of the virus may not indicate a real infection.
“Recent reports have revealed a noninvasive clinical course of COVID-19 infection during pregnancy. Maternal malignancy can manifest prenatally or postnatally and induce sudden postpartum disinfection, and a delay may be manifested up to 14 days from the onset of the symptom, ”they wrote in the study.
However, based on systematic screening of samples, the scientists said there was no evidence that the virus was transmitted by a mother-infant.
The researchers also found specific SARS-CoV-2 antibodies in maternal and umbilical cord blood.
But they said this finding may not be conclusive evidence of the transmission of antibodies from mothers to babies as the protective proteins may be traded in cases where the maternal-fetal interface is broken by inflammation. .