Researchers have identified a total of four cases of new-born babies with COVID-19 infection in China. In all cases the babies experienced only mild symptoms with none requiring intensive care or mechanical ventilation according to research. The study was carried out by Dr Zhi-Jiang Zhang and colleagues at Wuhan University in China. The team report that all four babies were born to mothers with COVID-19 and all were delivered by caesarean section. Three were separated from their mothers at birth.
The researchers say the rapid spread of the infection may mean there are other cases of new-borns with COVID-19 that they were not able to track down.
Zhang said: "COVID-19 is highly contagious and our study suggests that intrauterine transmission cannot be ruled out, but that the prognosis is good for both pregnant women and new-born babies."
Professor Tobias Welte is an infections expert from the European Respiratory Society and is a coordinator for the national German COVID-19 task force and was not involved in the study. He said: "It's important to protect pregnant women and new-born babies against infection. It's also important that any cases of COVID-19 in new-borns are picked up, monitored and treated quickly and carefully. At this stage we still do not know whether there are any longer-term consequences of infection."
Abstract
Previous studies described the clinical features of COVID-19 in adults and infants under 1 year of age. Little is known about features, outcomes and intrauterine transmission potential in newborn babies aged 28 days or less. Through systematical searching, we identified 4 infections in newborn babies in China as of March 13. The age range was 30 h to 17 days old. Three were male. Two newborn babies had fever, 1 had shortness of breath, 1 had cough and 1 had no syndromes. Supportive treatment was provided for all 4 newborn babies. None required intensive unit care or mechanical ventilation. None had any severe complications. Three newborn babies recovered by the end of this study and had been discharged with 16, 23, and 30 days of hospital stay. All 4 mothers were infected by SARS-CoV-2, 3 showing symptoms before and 1 after delivery. Cesarean section was used for all 4 mothers, 3 at level III hospitals and 1 at a level II hospital. Three newborn babies were separated from mothers right after being born and were not breastfed. In summary, newborn babies are susceptible to SARS-CoV-2 infection. The symptoms in newborn babies were milder and outcomes were less severe as compared to adults. Intrauterine vertical transmission is possible but direct evidence is still lacking.
Authors
Zhi-Jiang Zhang, Xue-Jie Yu, Tao Fu, Yu Liu, Yan Jiang, Bing Xiang Yang, Yongyi Bi
[link url="https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/04/200408220607.htm"]European Lung Foundation material[/link]
[link url="https://erj.ersjournals.com/content/early/2020/04/01/13993003.00697-2020"]European Respiratory Journal abstract[/link]