The risk of mother-to-newborn transmission of COVID-19 is low, but the illness in pregnant women can trigger preterm birth, researchers say. The new study looked at 255 babies born in Massachusetts last year to mothers with a recent positive test for COVID-19. Only about 2% of the 88% of babies who were tested for COVID-19 had a positive result.
“We found that of babies born to mothers with COVID-19, very few babies tested positive,” senior author Dr. Mandy Brown Belfort, an associate professor of pediatrics at Harvard Medical School, said in a Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center news release.