After receiving a dose of the COVID-19 vaccine during pregnancy, a woman in Florida gave birth to the first newborn infant born with COVID-19 antibodies.
The Florida woman is a frontline health worker that received a dose of the Moderna COVID-19 vaccine jab at 36 weeks of pregnancy. Three weeks later, she gave birth to a healthy baby girl with COVID antibodies found after analysis of blood from the umbilical cord, reports People.
First Baby Born with COVID Antibodies
Pediatrician Paul Gilbert, in a statement, says that the baby born in Palm Beach County is the first infant born with antibodies after a pregnant mom received the vaccination.
Gilbert and colleague Chad Rudnick published the preprint study in MedRxiv entitled "Newborn Antibodies to SARS-CoV-2 detected in cord blood after maternal vaccination," explains that although the safety and efficacy of flu vaccinations for pregnant patients have been well studied by analyzing its effects via the placental transfer of antibodies, the same cannot be said for the COVID-19 vaccines.
There is little known about COVID vaccines and the transfer of the SARS-CoV-2 antibodies in pregnant patients, although a similar level of protection should be expected according to the two physicians,
Researchers tested the newborn's blood in order to see if antibodies from the mother were passed down to the baby which is a normal phenomenon with other vaccinations during pregnancy.
After careful analysis of the blood extracted from the newborn's umbilical cord at the time of birth, attending physicians confirmed the presence of SARS-CoV-2 antibodies present in the baby, noting in the preprint that the results prove the potential protection and infection risk reduction with maternal vaccinations.
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COVID-19 and Pregnancy
Likewise, an earlier study published in the journal iScience, entitled "Robust and Specific Secretory IgA Against SARS-CoV-2 Detected in Human Milk" found that lactating mothers that previously recovered from COVID-19 had antibodies present in their breast milk, speculating the possibility of antibody transfer from newborns via the same mechanisms.
Despite the numerous signs of probability authors of the study stress that it is still unknown how well antibodies could protect newborns or whether vaccinating during pregnancy would confer the best immunological transfer.
Rudnick says that the Florida baby is only a small case compared to the thousands to be born after mothers get vaccinated in the coming months.
More investigations and rigid analysis will need to be carried out to understand whether antibodies are prevalent in most babies born to mothers who received doses of COVID-19 vaccines during pregnancy and whether there is a difference in the vaccine used.
Authors of the study urge investigators to gather and collate data on pregnancy and breastfeeding registries for vaccinations, and conduct scrutinous efficacy and safety studies of coviD-19 vaccines in pregnant and lactating women and their offspring.
With more and more cases of maternal antibody transfer, researchers are hoping to gather conclusive evidence that will definitely state the safety and process of vaccines on mothers and newborns.
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