Covid transmission between pregnant women and babies is low, says study

There is little chance that a pregnant woman with Covid-19 will transmit the disease to her baby, particularly when the case is mild, indicated a large study published on Wednesday (16).

“The Sars-CoV-2 positivity rate is low among babies born to a woman infected” with the coronavirus, on the order of 2%, summarized this work, published in the British Journal of Medicine.

This study is important because it is one of the first of this proportion that establishes the issue of intrauterine transmission of Covid-19.

It was a meta-analysis, which compiled the results of hundreds of pre-existing studies, and which allows a priori to draw firm conclusions.

It is not ruled out that a pregnant woman can transmit the disease to her baby, but this is a rare phenomenon.

The percentage of 2% should be taken with caution because it varies depending on the circumstances. It is more common for a baby to be infected when the mother has suffered from the severe form of Covid, in particular when hospitalization is required.

In cases of severe Covid, experts recommend that babies be systematically tested. But they reject it as inappropriate for “the separation of the baby and the mother at birth” simply because the mother tested positive.

There is also no risk of transmitting the coronavirus through breast milk.

“On the whole, the conclusions of this study seem reassuring”, evaluates, in an editorial published in the same journal, scientist Catherine McLean Pirkle, who was not involved in the study.

The data from this mega-study are considerable, but of uneven quality, warns the researcher. In particular, they do not allow to clarify the extent to which the rare cases of Covid in babies pose a serious risk to their health.