Study reveals that most babies of mRNA-injected mothers have antibodies at 6 months

At six months of age, babies born to mothers vaccinated against COVID-19 during pregnancy are more likely to have antibodies against the virus in their blood than babies born to unvaccinated mothers who were infected while pregnant, a small study suggests.

Researchers on Monday reported in JAMA on 28 six-month-old infants born to women who were vaccinated with two doses of an mRNA vaccine at 20 to 32 weeks’ gestation, when transfer of maternal antibodies to the fetus via the placenta is at its highest, and 12 babies of that age whose mothers were infected during that same time frame.

Among 14,104 women giving birth before vaccines were available, the 586 with moderate or severe COVID-19 during delivery or within 6 weeks beforehand were more likely to need cesarean deliveries, to deliver pre-term, to die around the time of birth, or to experience serious illness from high blood pressure, bleeding, or infections other than SARS-CoV-2.

These drugs “should first go to patients at the highest risk of death from COVID-19, but the opposite happened - the healthiest patients were the most likely to get treatment,” study leader Michael Barnett of Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health said in a statement.