There is no evidence that the new strain of coronavirus, dubbed COVID-19, can be passed on from pregnant women in their third trimesters to their unborn children, according to a study published in The Lancet.
Researchers reviewed clinical records and analyzed samples of amniotic fluid and umbilical cord blood for nine pregnant women with COVID-19 admitted to a hospital in China between Jan. 20 to Jan. 31. The women were in the third trimester of their pregnancies. The researchers also assessed throat swab samples from the infants after they were born.
Seven of the nine women had a fever, and several had a cough and sore throat. All the deliveries were cesarean sections and resulted in live births.
Researchers found no evidence of COVID-19 in any of the infants.
Isolating the baby from the infected mother after birth is key, according to Wei Zhang, PhD, co-author of the study and associate professor of preventive medicine at Chicago-based Northwestern Medicine's division of cancer epidemiology and prevention.
Dr. Zhang also said that the study confirms COVID-19 will not be passed from mother to child in the third trimester of a pregnancy, but that does not mean it cannot be transmitted in earlier stages in a pregnancy.
"We don't yet know about any potential transmission during earlier trimesters," he said.