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. 2022;119(5):619-628.
doi: 10.1159/000526313. Epub 2022 Sep 9.

Infants Born to Mothers Who Were SARS-CoV-2 Positive during Pregnancy and Admitted to Neonatal Intensive Care Unit

Prakesh S Shah  1   2   3 , Chloe Joynt  4 , Stellan Håkansson  5 , Michael Narvey  6 , Lars Navér  7   8 , Jonas Söderling  9 , Junmin Yang  3 , Marc Beltempo  10 , Olof Stephansson  9   11 , Deshayne B Fell  12   13 , Deborah Money  14 , Joseph Y Ting  4 , Mikael Norman  7   8 ; for CNN
Affiliations

Infants Born to Mothers Who Were SARS-CoV-2 Positive during Pregnancy and Admitted to Neonatal Intensive Care Unit

Prakesh S Shah et al. Neonatology. 2022.

Abstract

Introduction: Our objective was to compare neonatal outcomes and resource use of neonates born to mothers with SARS-CoV-2 positivity during pregnancy with neonates born to mothers without SARS-CoV-2 positivity.

Methods: We conducted a two-country cohort study of neonates admitted between January 1, 2020, and September 15, 2021, to tertiary neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) in Canada and Sweden. Neonates from mothers who were SARS-CoV-2 positive during pregnancy were compared with three randomly selected NICU neonates of mothers who were not test-positive, matched on gestational age, sex, and birth weight (±0.25 SD). Subgroup analyses were conducted for neonates born <33 weeks' gestation and mothers who were SARS-CoV-2 positive ≤10 days prior to birth. Primary outcome was duration of respiratory support. Secondary outcomes were in-hospital mortality, neonatal morbidity, late-onset sepsis, receipt of breast milk at discharge, and length of stay.

Results: There were 163 exposed and 468 matched neonates in Canada, and 303 exposed and 903 matched neonates in Sweden. There was no statistically significant difference in invasive or noninvasive respiratory support durations, mortality, respiratory and other neonatal morbidities, or resource utilizations between two groups in both countries in entire cohort and in subgroup analyses. Receipt of breast milk at discharge was lower in the Canadian neonates of mothers who were SARS-CoV-2 positive ≤10 days before birth (risk ratio 0.68, 95% CI: 0.57-0.82).

Conclusion: Maternal SARS-CoV-2 positivity was not associated with increased durations of respiratory support, morbidities, mortality, or length of hospital stay in Canada and Sweden among neonates admitted to tertiary NICU.

Keywords: COVID-19; Infant; Maternal positivity; Outcomes; Preterm.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors have no conflicts of interest or potential conflicts of interest relevant to this article to disclose.

Figures

Fig. 1
Fig. 1
Study flow diagram of admissions to neonatal intensive care units (n= 32 in Canada andn= 8 in Sweden).
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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