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SINGAPORE (Reuters) – Pregnant women with COVID-19 get no more ill than the general population, according to a Singapore study published on Friday, which also found that babies born to infected mothers have antibodies to the new coronavirus.
The small study of 16 women also found no evidence of mother-to-baby transmission of the virus, offering insight into an area of COVID-19 infection that is not yet well understood globally.
The World Health Organization says that pregnant women can be severely affected by some respiratory infections and that it is not known whether mothers with COVID-19 can transmit the virus to their babies during pregnancy or delivery.
“The results of the study were reassuring,” the Singapore Obstetrics and Gynecology Research Network said in a statement.
“This shows that the incidence and severity of COVID-19 among pregnant women parallels trends in the general population.”
The study said that most of the participants were mildly infected, while the most serious reactions occurred in older, overweight women.
None of the women died and all made a full recovery. Two women lost their babies, which the researchers said in one case could have been linked to complications from the virus.
Five women had given birth when the study was published and all of their babies had antibodies without being infected by the virus, although the researchers said it is not yet clear what level of protection it can offer.
More monitoring was required to see if the antibodies decrease as the babies grow, the researchers said.
The amount of antibodies in the babies varied and was highest among those whose mothers had been infected closer to the time of delivery, the researchers added.
Doctors in China have reported the detection and decline over time of COVID-19 antibodies in babies born to women with coronavirus disease, according to an October article in Emerging Infectious Diseases.
(Reporting by Chen Lin and John Geddie; Editing by Michael Perry and Karishma Singh)
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