New Delhi: Women infected with Covid-19 are unlikely to pass the virus to their newborn babies if they take correct hygiene precautions such as washing hands and wearing masks, according to a small observational study.
The study, published in The Lancet Child & Adolescent Health journal Friday, stated that mothers with Covid-19 infections can also breastfeed their babies and stay in the same room with their newborns safely, provided they use appropriate face covers and follow infection control procedures.
The researchers found no cases of transmission of the virus during childbirth or after two weeks of breastfeeding and skin-to-skin contact.
Covid guidelines for new mothers have been conflicting
So far, the data on the risk of Covid-19 transmission during pregnancy or while breastfeeding have been limited to a small number of case studies. As a result, the guidelines for pregnant women and new mothers with Covid-19 are conflicting.
“We hope our study will provide some reassurance to new mothers that the risk of them passing Covid-19 to their babies is very low. However, larger studies are needed to better understand the risks of transmission from mother to child,” said one of the authors of the study, Christine M. Salvatore from the Weill Cornell Medicine-New York Presbyterian Komansky Children’s Hospital in the US, in a statement.
The American Academy of Pediatrics advises that mothers and newborns should be temporarily separated at birth. They recommend that babies are fed expressed breast milk until their mothers are deemed to be no longer infectious.
The World Health Organization and the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists, meanwhile, recommend that mothers should share a room with their babies and breastfeed, with appropriate precautions.
Both, however, emphasise that the benefits of breastfeeding outweigh potential risks of Covid-19 transmission.
Also read: Coronavirus does not spread from pregnant women to babies, says Chinese study
Details of the Lancet study
The Lancet study involved 120 babies born to 116 Covid-positive mothers at three hospitals in New York City between 22 March and 17 May. All the babies were allowed to share a room with their mothers and were breastfed, if their mothers were well enough.
The babies were kept in enclosed cribs, six feet apart, except during feeding. Mothers were required to wear surgical masks while handling their babies, and followed frequent hand and breast washing procedures.
None of the babies tested positive for Covid-19 within the first 24 hours of birth. Researchers were able to collect follow-up for 82 babies after 5 to 7 days of birth.
Majority of the babies — 68 out of 82 — had been sharing the same room with their mothers and three quarters were still breastfeeding at the end of the study period.
The researchers tested 79 babies again for the SARS-CoV-2 virus after 5-7 days and 72 babies were further tested after two weeks of birth. None of the results were positive and none of the babies showed symptoms of Covid-19 at any time.
The team was able to follow up with 53 babies through a video conference after one month of birth. All continued to be clinically well, the researchers said.
“We know that skin-to-skin contact and breastfeeding are important both for mother-infant bonding and for long-term child health. Our findings suggest that babies born to mothers with Covid-19 infection can still benefit from these safely, if appropriate infection control measures are followed,” said another author of the study Patricia DeLaMora from the same US hospital in the statement.
Limitations
The researchers, however, acknowledged that the sample size of the study is too small to draw firm conclusions, and that larger studies are needed.
Moreover, as much as one-third of the babies were not followed-up as parents were afraid of leaving their homes and using public transport to attend clinic appointments in the midst of the pandemic.
The team used nasal swabs from the babies to test for Covid-19. There is a possibility that babies who have been infected in the womb may not have the virus present in the nasal or throat cavity.
The team was unable to test blood, urine or faecal samples for the virus because such tests were not validated at the time of the study.
Also read: Covid-19 positive woman gives birth to ‘healthy’ baby at AIIMS in Delhi