Safety of Breastfeeding in Mothers with SARS-CoV-2 Infection

  1. Qingqing Luo
  2. Lan Chen
  3. Dujuan Yao
  4. Jianwen Zhu
  5. Xiangzhi Zeng
  6. Lin Xia
  7. Min Wu
  8. Lin Lin
  9. Zhishan Jin
  10. Qingmiao Zhang
  11. Dilu Feng
  12. Shihuan Yu
  13. Bo Song
  14. Wanlin Zhang
  15. Hongbo Wang
  16. Yanfang Zhang
  17. Zhengyuan Su
  18. Minhua Luo
  19. Xuan Jiang
  20. Hui Chen

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Abstract

Background: The outbreak of Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) is threatening a surging number of populations worldwide, including women in breastfeeding period. Limited evidence is available concerning breastfeeding in women with COVID-19. Methods: Twenty-three pregnant women and puerperae were enrolled in the study. To evaluate the effect of breastfeeding on SARS-CoV-2 transmission, the presence of SARS-CoV-2, IgG and IgM in breast milk, maternal blood and infant blood were assessed. Feeding patterns were also recorded in follow-up. Results: No positive detection for SARS-CoV-2 of neonates was found. All breast milk samples were negative for the detection of SARS-CoV-2. The presence of IgM ofSARS-CoV-2 in breast milk was correlated with maternal blood. The results of IgG detection for SARS-CoV-2 were negative in all breast milk samples. All the infants were in healthy condition while six of them were fed with whole or partial breast milk. Eight infants received antibody test for SARS-CoV-2 in one month after birth and the results were all negative. Conclusion: Findings from this small number of cases suggest that there is currently no evidence for mother-to-child transmission via breast feeding in women with COVID-19 in the third trimester and puerperium.

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    SciScore for 10.1101/2020.05.30.20033407: (What is this?)

    Please note, not all rigor criteria are appropriate for all manuscripts.

    Table 1: Rigor

    Institutional Review Board StatementIRB: This study was performed according to the Declaration of Helsinki and approved by the Medical Ethical Committee of Union Hospital, Tongji Medical College, HUST (approval number 20200047).
    Consent: Written informed consent forms were obtained from all enrolled patients.
    Randomizationnot detected.
    Blindingnot detected.
    Power Analysisnot detected.
    Sex as a biological variableStudy design and patients: Total twenty-three pregnant women with fourteen confirmed with SARS-CoV-2 infection and nine suspected with COVID-19 were enrolled in the study.

    Table 2: Resources

    Software and Algorithms
    SentencesResources
    Statistical analysis was done in SPSS version 21.0.
    SPSS
    suggested: (SPSS, RRID:SCR_002865)

    Results from OddPub: We did not detect open data. We also did not detect open code. Researchers are encouraged to share open data when possible (see Nature blog).

    Results from LimitationRecognizer: An explicit section about the limitations of the techniques employed in this study was not found. We encourage authors to address study limitations.

    Results from TrialIdentifier: No clinical trial numbers were referenced.

    Results from Barzooka: We did not find any issues relating to the usage of bar graphs.

    Results from JetFighter: We did not find any issues relating to colormaps.

    Results from rtransparent:
    • Thank you for including a conflict of interest statement. Authors are encouraged to include this statement when submitting to a journal.
    • Thank you for including a funding statement. Authors are encouraged to include this statement when submitting to a journal.
    • No protocol registration statement was detected.

    About SciScore

    SciScore is an automated tool that is designed to assist expert reviewers by finding and presenting formulaic information scattered throughout a paper in a standard, easy to digest format. SciScore checks for the presence and correctness of RRIDs (research resource identifiers), and for rigor criteria such as sex and investigator blinding. For details on the theoretical underpinning of rigor criteria and the tools shown here, including references cited, please follow this link.

  2. Version published to 10.1101/2020.05.30.20033407 on medRxiv