- Doctors in France reported the first confirmed case of an unborn baby who contracted COVID-19 from his mother while still in the womb.
- The case was published in the journal Nature Communications on Tuesday.
- The authors said the baby’s brain had evidence of inflammation caused by the coronavirus. They also said they found sufficient evidence that the baby had been crossed through the placenta.
- Several previous studies indicated that placental or cervical transmission was possible, but the case study from the Antoine Béclère hospital in Paris now serves as evidence.
- However, it is very rare. The main author of the article said that “pregnant women should be calm” because “in most cases there will be no harm to the baby.”
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Doctors in France reported that what they say is the first confirmed case of a fetus contracting its mother’s coronavirus while still in the womb.
The case was the subject of a document titled “Transplacental Transmission of SARS-CoV-2 Infection,” which was published in the journal Nature Communications on Tuesday. The details of the document were first reported by The Guardian.
Until now, there has been limited evidence suggesting that an unborn child could contract the coronavirus from inside the uterus, but the authors of the article, from the Antoine Béclère hospital in Paris, confirmed that “transplacental transmission of SARS-CoV-2 was possible. “
They said a 23-year-old woman was admitted to the hospital with a fever and cough on March 24 when she was more than 35 weeks pregnant with a child.
A doctor detains the newborn son of a patient with coronavirus at the Maternal Monica Pretelini Hospital in Toluca, Mexico, on May 29, 2020. This is not the case mentioned in this story.
Cristopher Rogel Blanquet / Getty Images
The mother tested positive for the coronavirus, gave birth by cesarean section, and the baby was immediately taken to the hospital’s natal intensive care unit.
The baby tested positive for the virus. He later recovered and was discharged from the hospital 18 days later, the doctors wrote.
Doctors said the baby’s brain had evidence of inflammation caused by the coronavirus, which had crossed the placenta into the baby’s bloodstream.
They ruled out the possibility of the baby contracting the virus after birth by viral or bacterial means.
“The placenta showed signs of acute and chronic intervillous inflammation consistent with the severe systemic maternal inflammatory state caused by SARS-CoV-2 infection,” the authors said.
A pregnant woman wearing a face mask walks past a mural in Hong Kong on March 23, 2020.
ANTHONY WALLACE / AFP via Getty Images)
Doctors noted that there have been similar cases of babies born with the coronavirus in the past, but until now, they have been unable to definitively say whether babies could contract the virus in utero.
A small study of 31 women in Italy in March and April found some evidence showing that unborn babies can contract the virus from their mothers.
Three other studies published in March also found evidence that it was possible.
Doctors in France wrote: “We have shown that transplacental transmission of SARS-CoV-2 infection is possible during the last weeks of pregnancy.”
“Other cases of possible perinatal transmission were recently described, but they presented several unaddressed problems,” the authors said.
A pregnant woman seen during an ultrasound at a perinatal center in Tatarstan on June 5, 2020.
Yegor Aleyev TASS via Getty Images
However, Daniele De Luca, lead author and medical director of pediatrics at the Paris hospital, told The Guardian that cases like this are very rare.
“Pregnant women should be calm,” he said.
“The pregnancy is very controlled and if you have something like this, you can control it. In most cases there will be no harm to the baby.”
“There are many things that we can do, but we cannot close our eyes and say that this will never happen.”
The long-term effect of coronavirus in pregnant women with positive coronavirus and their unborn children is unknown.
