The Sassoon General Hospital here in Maharashtra claimed to have reported the country’s first case of ‘vertical transmission’ of COVID-19 from a mother to her child through the placenta.
Vertical transmission takes place when the baby is in the uterus. If the mother is infected, the transmission of the virus takes place through the placenta — a temporary organ that develops in the uterus during pregnancy and provides oxygen and nutrients to the growing baby.
Explaining the phenomena, Sassoon General Hospital’s paediatrics department head Dr. Aarti Kinikar told PTI on July 28 that when a person contracts the infection, it is mainly because of some contact with fomites. If the mother is infected, the baby can be infected post-natally because of breastfeeding or any other contacts. So, in layman’s language, the baby does not have an infection at birth, but acquires it after three to four days, she said.
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Whereas, in the case of vertical transmission, a mother who has the infection — either symptomatic or asymptomatic — transfers the infection to the baby in the uterus itself through the placenta, she explained.
Dr .Kinikar said, in the present case, which was quite challenging for them, the woman had symptoms for a week before her delivery.
“Since the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) has made it mandatory to test all pregnant women , the woman was tested but her reports were negative,” she said.
“After the baby girl’s birth, swabs of her nose, umbilical cord and placenta were tested and the reports were positive,” she said.
“The baby was then kept in a separate ward. After two to three days of birth, the baby also developed strong symptoms like fever and there were signs of cytokine storm, suggesting severe inflammation,” said Dr. Kinikar.
A cytokine storm is a physiological reaction in which the immune system causes an uncontrolled and excessive release of pro-inflammatory signalling molecules called cytokines.
Dr. Kinikar said the baby girl was kept in intensive care and after two weeks, she recovered. Both the mother and the child have been discharged.
“During the investigation, it was confirmed that it was a case of vertical transmission. We waited for three weeks and tested the blood samples of both the mother and child for antibody response,” Dr. Kinikar said.
Both had developed antibodies, she said, adding that while the antibodies were high in number in the mother, the baby had less.
Sassoon General Hospital’s Dean Dr. Murlidhar Tambe claimed this was the first case of vertical transmission of coronavirus infection in India. “I congratulate the doctors who worked hard to treat the mother and the baby,” he said.
The baby was born at the hospital in the last week of May.
