Just a day ago we knew of the first case in the world of antibodies against the coronavirus detected in the umbilical cord blood of a baby born to a mother immunized with Moderna’s vaccine three weeks earlier. That already made researchers suspect that vaccinating pregnant women during pregnancy is effective in protecting their children as well.
In fact, a recent study of Pfizer and Moderna vaccines in nursing mothers concluded that they also pass them to their babies through breast milk.
This possibility of generating protective antibodies capable of passing through the transplacental route to the fetus or newborn, has also been demonstrated in Spain: Bruno was born last week at the Can Misses hospital in Ibiza and after performing an analysis on the blood of his umbilical cord was found to register an antibody value against Covid of 5,000 compared to 8,000 of his mother. She, an anesthetist at the same hospital, had been vaccinated in the third trimester of pregnancy.
Pending to know how long the immunization lasts
In early March, a study published in the American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology conducted on pregnant women with Covid, concluded that the ability to create antibodies is the same in pregnant women as in those who are not.
However, in the vaccines approved so far, pregnant women have not been included in the trials, so it is not yet clear what level of protection these babies would have. Vaccination of pregnant women, whose Covid infection could cause more serious problems, is carried out individually depending on each case.
In fact, the WHO does not recommend it in future mothers due to lack of data, and only in the case that a pregnant woman cannot avoid exposing herself to a high risk of contagion (as is the case with health workers), and afterwards it can be proper administration.
In order to provide answers, some pharmaceutical companies are beginning to include pregnant women and newborns in studies and the results could change the current recommendations. Research published in late March in the American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology, the largest study of vaccines in pregnant women to date, concludes that the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines against Covid-19 are effective in pregnant and lactating women. , and that they can pass protective antibodies to their newborns.
Hence, the results of the umbilical cord of the Ibizan child are so interesting. Raquel Gascón, the obstetric coordinator at the Can Misses hospital, where Bruno was born and his mother works, explains that “the baby’s virus rates are very good.”
“Confirm that when you give the coronavirus vaccine in the third trimester of pregnancy, that induces the baby to start making antibodies and that at the time of delivery it has protective levels against the covid.”
But he acknowledges that, for now, “it is anyone’s guess” how long the antibodies will last for both mother and baby.
He points out that cord blood was taken to obtain the data, because “it could also be done with an analysis, but pricking a baby is embarrassing.”
Via | The newspaper
Photos | iStock
In Babies and More | A Baby Is Born With Covid Antibodies, After His Mother Was Infected During Pregnancy, What We Know About Covid Vaccine Trials In Infants And Children
