MOSCOW, February 5. /TASS/. Antibodies to the coronavirus may be transferred from a mother to a child through the placenta as well as with breast milk. At the same time it doesn’t matter whether the antibodies were developed after the infection or vaccination, Alexander Gintsburg, Director of the Gamaleya National Research Center for Epidemiology and Microbiology of the Russian Healthcare Ministry that developed the vaccine, said.
"Antibodies from a mother to a child may pass through the placenta. Additionally, with breast milk a child may receive antibodies not only to the coronavirus. This is a well-known biological law that breastfeeding ensures that a child until six months of age is practically protected by the antibodies he received from his mother," he said in a joint interview with TASS and the Kazinform news agency.
The scientist added that colostrum that women generate before nursing includes the majority of maternal antibodies. "The concentration of maternal antibodies in colostrum surpasses the concentration of antibodies in blood many times, dozens of times, so breastfeeding is not only the source of nutrition necessary for a child to grow but just as much a protection from different infectious diseases because his own immune system hasn’t been formed yet," the expert explained.
In the middle of January, Ilian Trayanov, head of the obstetrics department in a hospital in Bulgarian Pazardzhik, reported of a case of the coronavirus transferred from a pregnant woman to a fetus. According to him, a 28-year-old mother got infected with the coronavirus during the eighth month of pregnancy at the end of last year, she had cough and elevated body temperature.
Numerous publications on the coronavirus infection note that a direct intrauterine route of infection with the coronavirus has not been proven.