Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
Review
. 2022 Jun;15(2):91-98.
doi: 10.1177/1753495X211038157.

Vertical transmission of SARS-CoV-2: A systematic review

Kristine Jeganathan  1 , Anthea Bm Paul  2
Affiliations
Review

Vertical transmission of SARS-CoV-2: A systematic review

Kristine Jeganathan et al. Obstet Med. 2022 Jun.

Abstract

In this study, we discuss vertical transmission of SARS-CoV-2, and assess various maternal and neonatal outcomes based on the current evidence available. This systematic review using PRISMA guidelines revealed a total of 47 eligible studies describing 1188 SARS-CoV-2 positive pregnant women and 985 neonates for review. Utilizing the 'Shah's Classification System for Maternal-Fetal-Neonatal SARS-CoV-2 Intrauterine Infections' by Shah et al., we found vertical transmission confirmed in 0.3% (n = 3), probable in 0.5% (n = 5), possible in 1.8% (n = 17), unlikely in 80.3% (724) and not infected in 17% (n = 153).

Keywords: COVID-19; Neonate; SARS-CoV-2; newborn; pregnancy; vertical transmission.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

Declaration of conflicting interests: The authors declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship and/or publication of this article.

Figures

Figure 1.
Figure 1.
Study selection flow chart. The study selection process was done in accordance with the PRISMA (Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-analyses) guidelines. The search strategy began with 1166 articles and was then narrowed down to 47 articles based on title/abstract scan and full-text screening. ‘The PRISMA Statement and the PRISMA Explanation and Elaboration document are distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited’.
Figure 2.
Figure 2.
Distribution of neonatal infections using Shah's Classification System for Maternal-Fetal-Neonatal SARS-CoV-2 Intrauterine Infections.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

References

    1. Sohrabi C, Alsafi Z, O’Neill Net al. et al. World health organization declares global emergency: a review of the 2019 novel coronavirus (COVID-19). Int J Surg 2020; 76: 71–76. - PMC - PubMed
    1. Dong E, Du H, Gardner L. An interactive web-based dashboard to track COVID-19 in real time. Lancet Infect Dis 2020; 20: 533–534. - PMC - PubMed
    1. Silasi M, Cardenas I, Kwon JYet al. et al. Viral infections during pregnancy. Am J Reprod Immunol 2015; 73: 199–213. - PMC - PubMed
    1. Berkowitz K, LaSala A. Risk factors associated with the increasing prevalence of pneumonia during pregnancy. Am J Obstet Gynecol 1990; 163: 981–985. - PubMed
    1. Schwartz DA, Graham AL. Potential maternal and infant outcomes from (Wuhan) coronavirus 2019-nCoVinfecting pregnant women: lessons from SARS, MERS, and other human coronavirus infections. Viruses 2020; 12: 194. - PMC - PubMed

LinkOut - more resources