Neonatal Respiratory Disorder Found in Infants from SARS-CoV-2 Infected Mothers

The JAMA published an Original Investigation on April 29, 2021 that reviewed the 'Association of Maternal SARS-CoV-2 Infection in Pregnancy With Neonatal Outcomes' of 88,159 infants from Sweden.

A SARS-CoV-2 infection in pregnancy was significantly associated with a higher risk of any neonatal respiratory disorder (2.8% vs. 2.0%; odds ratio, 1.42) and some other neonatal morbidities. But not neonatal mortality (0.30% vs 0.12%; odds ratio, 2.55).

This study could neither confirm nor rule out an association between maternal SARS-CoV-2 test positivity and increased fetal distress during delivery or birth asphyxia.

All SARS-CoV-2–exposed infants underwent SARS-CoV-2 PCR testing at least once (those admitted for neonatal care were tested 3 times), and a majority tested negative for SARS-CoV-2 in the neonatal period. 

And, given that mothers and their infants were kept together, the results presented herein suggest that the risk of viral transmission from mothers to their newborns and older infants is low. Should it occur, infants are not severely affected. These findings suggest that routine interventions such as mother-infant separation and stopping breastfeeding may not be necessary.

An additional message of this study is that SARS-CoV-2 test positivity in mothers did not prolong hospital stay for families.

Given the small number of events for many of the outcomes and the large number of statistical comparisons, the findings should be interpreted as exploratory, stated these researchers.