Can the mother transmit COVID-19 to the baby during pregnancy? : what is known so far

Since the World Health Organization (WHO) declared the COVID-19 pandemic in March 2020, there are almost infinite questions that the virus discovered in Wuhan, China, unleashed in the scientific community.

Risk groups were soon established. And although pregnant women, unlike what had happened in the influenza pandemic, are not part of these groups with the greatest chance of developing serious illness, experts studied - and are still studying - what is the extent of viral infection for children in the mother's womb, if the woman becomes infected during pregnancy.

Now, a recent study found that “women can transmit COVID to their babies, but the phenomenon is rare.”

Researchers at the University of Birmingham estimated that approximately 2% of babies born to infected mothers test positive for the virus shortly after birth. But as they clarified, contagion can occur in the womb, during labor or delivery, or during the first few days of a baby's life.

Experts reviewed nearly 500 international studies involving 18,000 children born to COVID-positive mothers during the pandemic, and saw that only 1.8% tested positive for the virus, highlighting the “low risk” of mothers transmitting the virus, according to Daily Mail.

So, a later analysis suggested that only a small fraction of them probably contracted the virus in the womb. They also added that when proper preventive measures are taken after a mother tests positive, such as wearing face masks, “newborns are unlikely to become infected.”

“SARS-CoV-2 positivity rates were found to be low in babies born to mothers with SARS-CoV-2 infection. Evidence suggests confirmed vertical transmission of SARS-CoV-2, although it is likely to be rare. The severity of maternal covid-19 seems to be associated with the positivity of SARS-CoV-2 in offspring,” said the authors of the review in their conclusions published in the British Medical Journal (BMJ).

Previous studies had detected fragments of the virus in the placenta, the amniotic fluid, which surrounds babies in the womb, vaginal fluid and breast milk.

Among the positive cases studied in this study, there were data from 592 babies suggesting that they might have contracted the virus from their mothers. And there were 14 documented mother-to-child transmissions.

In rich countries, such as the United States, the risk of mother-to-child transmission was below 0.1%.

In a linked editorial, Catherine McLean Pirkle, associate professor at the University of Hawaii, wrote: “Overall, the findings of this review seem reassuring.”

“Combined, the results suggest that when appropriate preventive measures are taken during the intrapartum and early postpartum periods, such as the constant and appropriate use of personal protective equipment, newborns are unlikely to become infected,” McLean Pirkle insisted, adding that “after they are born infants, infections can potentially develop from a variety of exposures, but they are still rare.”

It is noteworthy that “there was no association between breastfeeding and infection in newborns”, according to all the studies carried out so far.

Finally, while the study suggests that mothers rarely transmit COVID to their children, doctors said that having the virus during pregnancy can still pose a risk, especially if the mother is not vaccinated.

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