Mother Transmitted COVID-19 to Baby During Pregnancy, UTSW Physicians Report
upstart writes in with an IRC submission:
Mother transmitted COVID-19 to baby during pregnancy, UTSW physicians report:
A pregnant mother who tested positive for COVID-19 transmitted the virus causing the disease to her prematurely born baby, UT Southwestern physicians report. Both were treated and recovered.
The case, detailed in an article published last month in The Pediatric Infectious Disease Journal, adds to a growing body of evidence that the SARS-CoV-2 virus can be transmitted in utero. It also underscores the importance of limiting COVID-19 exposure for pregnant women.
[...] In the case described in the paper, a woman who was 34 weeks pregnant visited the emergency room with signs of premature labor and was admitted to the COVID unit at Parkland Memorial Hospital when she tested positive for the SARS-CoV-2 virus. While she did not have the typical respiratory symptoms associated with COVID-19, she did have a fever and diarrhea, which suggested possible viral infection.
[...] The woman, who did not know how she acquired the virus, remained hospitalized because of her COVID-19 diagnosis. Three days after admission, her water broke. Following an eight-hour labor in early May, she gave birth to a healthy 7-pound, 3-ounce girl.
[...] About 24 hours after birth, the newborn developed a fever that spiked, and she also showed signs of respiratory distress, including an abnormally high breathing rate and lower levels of oxygen in her blood. Sisman and her colleagues ran tests for viruses and bacteria. While other tests came back negative, a COVID-19 test was positive at both 24 and 48 hours after birth.
"At that time, the knowledge we had was that transmission doesn't occur in utero, so we really weren't expecting that at all," says Sisman.
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