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SINGAPORE – Although the babies of women infected with Covid-19 during their pregnancies were born with antibodies, it is unclear if this means that the baby is immune to the coronavirus or how long the immunity would last.
Earlier this month, Ms. Celine Ng-Chan, 31, gave birth to her second child and was told by her son’s pediatrician that she had antibodies to the virus.
Ms Ng-Chan, a private tutor, is one of the few women in Singapore who were infected with Covid-19 during their pregnancies and who have given birth here so far.
In such cases, it is not clear whether the antibodies were transmitted by the mother or whether the baby developed them himself.
In an October article published by Emerging Infectious Diseases magazine, of the 11 babies born to women with Covid-19 in Wuhan, China, all had detectable levels of IgG antibodies at birth, while five had detectable IgM antibodies.
IgM is the initial antibody that is produced in response to infection. However, it is generally not transferred from mother to fetus through the placenta due to its large size.
On the other hand, smaller IgG antibodies can be passively transferred from mother to fetus via the placenta, the paper noted. The duration of immunity of maternal IgG antibodies is unclear.
Controls with KK Children’s and Women’s Hospital (KKH) yielded similar conclusions.
Associate Professor Tan Hak Koon, president of the KKH division of obstetrics and gynecology, said there is evidence of antibodies among babies born to mothers with Covid-19.
“However, it is still unknown whether the presence of these antibodies in a newborn baby confers a degree of protection against Covid-19 infection, much less the duration of protection,” he said.
Meanwhile, both the National University Hospital (NUH) and KKH are part of a larger ongoing study involving several public hospitals in Singapore to investigate how Covid-19 can potentially affect the well-being and health of pregnant women and their babies.
A NUH spokesperson said: “We hope the study findings can help inform clinical guidance for the care of affected pregnant women and their babies, and help safeguard their health and well-being.”
Ms. Ng-Chan and her son are part of this study.
She said: “I am one of the few moms in Singapore who gets Covid-19 during pregnancy.
“I agreed to be part of the study because I think it is very important, so that we can find out more and better fight the virus.”
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