US: Babies born to mothers fully vaccinated against COVID-19 during pregnancy were around 60 per cent less likely to be hospitalised with severe COVID-19, a new study by the US Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said on Tuesday.
Such an effect had been hypothesised – because of the transfer of antibodies through the placenta during pregnancy and through breast milk after birth – but was not backed by real world evidence until now.
The CDC carried out a study involving 379 babies aged up to six months, who were hospitalised in 20 paediatric centres from July 2021 to January 2022.
The authors studied the odds of Covid-19 vaccination among mothers whose babies were hospitalised with the disease (176 infants) compared to the odds of vaccination among mothers whose babies were hospitalised for non-COVID-19 reasons (203 infants), who were a control group.
This is a statistical method used in real world studies to try to examine patients with similar characteristics, and is often used when it’s not possible or ethical to carry out a randomised clinical trial.
“Babies less than six months old whose mothers were vaccinated were 61 per cent less likely to be hospitalised with COVID-19,” CDC researcher Dana Meaney-Delman said in a press call.
What’s more, 84 per cent of babies who were hospitalised with COVID-19 were born to people not vaccinated in pregnancy. The one baby who died in the study was born to a mother who was not vaccinated.
Black and Hispanic babies were disproportionately hospitalised for COVID-19.
“The bottom line is that maternal vaccination is a really important way to help protect these young infants,” said
The study further found that completion of a two-dose vaccine series later in pregnancy was more protective than earlier in pregnancy – 80 per cent compared to 32 per cent.
Although that is consistent with what is known about the waning of antibody levels in the months that follow vaccination, Meaney-Delman said it was important for people to get vaccinated at any stage during pregnancy in order to protect both the mother and baby.
– THE STRAITS TIMES