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UCLA research highlights effects of COVID-19 infection during pregnancy on infants

(Victoria Li/Daily Bruin senior staff)

By Myra Xu and Caroline Sha

Jan. 6, 2022 12:13 a.m.

Recent UCLA-led research found becoming infected with COVID-19 while pregnant could result in damage to the infant’s immune system.

The study, published on Nov. 16, examined the consequences of mother-to-child transmission of COVID-19 when the infants tested negative for the virus itself.

Dr. Karin Nielsen, the senior author of the study and a professor of pediatrics, led a team of researchers examining 93 pregnant women and their levels of cytokines – proteins secreted by the immune system in response to strong symptoms due to a severe infection. An individual with COVID-19 would likely have increased levels of cytokines, which can prevent the body from properly responding to damaged cells.

Nielsen said she and her team found that the mothers who were hospitalized in the intensive care unit gave birth to infants with distinct patterns of cytokines. These led to conditions such as difficulty with lung functioning and poor brain development.

Currently, there is data indicating that COVID-19 can have severe effects on pregnancy, causing conditions such as preterm birth, or birth before the 37th week of pregnancy, said Dr. Anabelle de St. Maurice, an assistant professor of pediatrics.

Pregnant mothers who have COVID-19 also experience severe symptoms. At UCLA Health, she has spoken with doctors who have had pregnant patients who have been put on ventilators because of COVID-19, de St. Maurice said.

The researchers were surprised to find that this immune response was not found in the mothers, only their infants, according to Dr. Mary Catherine Cambou, a co-author of the study and an infectious diseases fellow at UCLA.

“What’s really striking about cytokines is that (they don’t) cross the placenta,” Cambou said. “So the response that we were seeing in the babies was distinct to the babies.”

Nielsen compared the effect of maternal COVID-19 on infants to the effects of the Zika epidemic in Brazil. She previously published world-renowned work for her discovery on the Zika virus leading to abnormalities in fetal development, which are similar to the health risks for mothers and infants posed by COVID-19.

Moving forward, the team is looking into other risk factors for severe COVID-19, the transfer of infection-fighting antibodies from the mother to infant, and how other immune cells play a role in inflammation.

“It’s definitely a long-term study and we want to also repeat everything that we’ve done so far in terms of the cytokine panel down the road to see if this is a sustained inflammation,” Nielsen said.

As for now, Nielsen encourages pregnant women to get vaccinated to prevent babies from being exposed to inflammation from their mothers.

“We know that the vaccine is safe and effective in pregnancy for both the mother and for the babies,” Cambou said. “So we’re very big proponents of vaccination during pregnancy, and we hope that this just reinforces that message.”

Up to early November, only 35.3% of pregnant women in the United States were vaccinated against COVID-19, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The low vaccination rate among pregnant women is due to multiple factors, including worries about side effects affecting the fetus and misinformation surrounding the vaccine’s effect on fertility, de St. Maurice explained.

“There’s robust data now demonstrating that there’s no impact on fertility and thousands of women have become pregnant since being vaccinated with the COVID vaccines,” de St. Maurice said. “There haven’t been any differences in terms of miscarriage or outcomes at birth amongst women who are vaccinated versus women who are unvaccinated.”

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