Babies may have caught virus in hours after birth

SIX babies tested positive for coronavirus within hours of being born to infected mothers, ministers have admitted, as doctors try to work out how they caught it.

A government-backed study to assess the outcomes for mothers and babies during the pandemic looked at 427 women who were admitted to hospital with Covid-19 between March 1 and April 14. Of those, about 60 per cent – 247 mothers – went on to give birth in hospital, and six of their babies “tested positive for [coronavirus] within the first 12 hours after birth”, ministers said.

Nadine Dorries, a health minister, said: “It is not yet possible to say whether any babies have been born in the United Kingdom with Covid-19.”

Her comments raise the prospect that – if they were not infected in the womb – the babies could have contracted the virus moments after being born.

The data come from the UK Obstetric Surveillance System with funding from the National Institute for Health Research and the National Perinatal Epidemiology Unit.

A major study on the findings is due to be published next week by The British Medical Journal.

Prof Marian Knight, from the University of Oxford, who is the lead on the study, told The Daily Telegraph that, while she could certain, she

‘If I were to put my finger on anything, it’s more likely it was acquired around birth rather than before birth’

thought all six babies caught the virus after being born. She said: “All we can say about these six babies is that they were neonatally acquired and, if I were to be putting my finger on anything, it is more likely it was acquired around birth rather than before birth.”

Only one needed to be treated in a neonatal unit, Prof Knight said.

There had been no tests of amniotic fluid, umbilical cord blood or the placenta, which would tell doctors whether the virus was passed in the womb.