There is a common belief that infants born to COVID 19 positive mother may have COVID 19,and their immunological status is impaired.
71 Newborns were taken in study to know the facts about the disease status and immunological status.
After exclusion criteria,51 Newborns were included in the study.
All mothers were tested positive for COVID 19 during third trimester of pregnancy.
Chest X-ray of all mothers done before delivery were consistent with viral Pneuimonia.
Apgar scores at 1 minutes and 5 minutes were assessed for all infants.
All Newborns were separated from the mother and kept in isolation with formula feeds.
Caesarean section was the mode of delivery in most cases.
Non of the Newborns showed any symptom in the form of cough ,fever and breathlessness consistent with COVID19, during the course of hospital stay.
No infant required mechanical ventilation but only few needed low flow oxygen with nasal catheter for <3 days.
Blood samples were taken within 3 days of birth to assess immmunological status.
Pharyngeal swabs were taken after 30 minutes of birth to detect Corona virus by RT-PCR .
RT-PCR were negative in all infants.
The levels of lymphocytes subsets,CD3,CD4,CD8 and CD19 and their proportion were normal except for CD16-CD56 which were below normal.
ImmunoglobulinG and Immunuglobulin M were normal.
Interleukin 6 were elevated and it was very high in one Newborn who developed Necrotising enterocolitis in the third week of life.
There was no correlation between duration of COVID 19 in mother and level of lymphocyte subsets or cytokine in infants.
All Newborns were discharged after 3 consequitive samples were found negative for COVID 19.
The study was published in JOURNAL OF ALLERGY AND CLINICAL IMMUNOLOGY.
REFERENCES:Liu P, Zheng J, Yang P, et al. The immunologic status of newborns born to SARS-CoV2-infected mothers in Wuhan, China [published online May 10, 2020]. J Allergy Clin Immunol. doi: 10.1016/j.jaci.2020.04.038