COVID-19
The immunologic status of newborns born to SARS-CoV-2–infected mothers in Wuhan, China

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jaci.2020.04.038Get rights and content

Background

Immunologic dysfunction due to coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is closely related to clinical prognosis, and the inflammatory response of pregnant women may affect the directional differentiation and function of fetal immune cells.

Objective

We sought to analyze the immune status of newborns from mothers with COVID-19 in the third trimester.

Methods

Along with collecting the clinical data from 51 newborns and their respective mothers, we recorded the immunophenotypes and cytokine and immunoglobulin levels of the newborns.

Results

None of the 51 newborns showed fever or respiratory distress during hospitalization. Detection of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 nucleic acid in pharyngeal swabs was negative. Except for the low level of CD16-CD56 cells, the count and proportion of lymphocytes, CD3, CD4, CD8, and CD19 were all in the normal range. Moreover, the serum IgG and IgM levels were within the normal range, whereas IL-6 showed increased levels. There was no correlation between maternal COVID-19 duration and the lymphocyte subsets or cytokine levels (IFN-γ, IL-2, IL-4, IL-6, IL-10, and TNF-α). There was a positive correlation between IL-6 and IL-10 levels and CD16-CD56 cells. One (1.96%) infant with an extremely elevated IL-6 concentration developed necrotizing enterocolitis in the third week after birth, and the remaining 50 infants did not show abnormal symptoms through the end of the follow-up period.

Conclusions

COVID-19 in the third trimester did not significantly affect the cellular and humoral immunity of the fetus, and there was no evidence that the differentiation of lymphocyte subsets was seriously unbalanced.

Key words

Newborn
pregnant women
COVID-19
third-trimester
lymphocyte subsets and cytokines

Abbreviations used

ALC
Absolute lymphocyte count
BW
Birth weight
COVID-19
Coronavirus disease 2019
GA
Gestational age
NEC
Necrotizing enterocolitis
SARS-CoV-2
Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2

Cited by (0)

This work was supported by the Science and Technology Department of Hubei Province (grant no. 2019-nCoV. No. 2020FCA011).

Disclosure of potential conflict of interest: The authors declare that they have no relevant conflicts of interest.

These authors are co-first authors and contributed equally to this work.

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