Covid may cause complications in newborns, expecting moms must get vaccinated: Doctors

NEW DELHI: Covid-19 in newborn babies is rare. Fortunately, it is rarer for small children to develop complications due to the disease. But it can happen.
Recently, doctors at Sir Ganga Ram Hospital (SGRH) said they had a late preterm delivery. At 26 hours of life, the newborn developed breathing difficulty, fullness in the stomach and tests showed perforation in the stomach. An emergency surgery was conducted in the next two hours to close the perforation.
Tests conducted later confirmed that both the newborn and his mother had high titers of total Covid antibodies — meaning they had been exposed to the infection.“We suspect that the infection caused inflammation of the intestinal tissue and its death. This, in turn, led to perforation in the stomach. If the baby wasn’t operated on in time, he wouldn’t have survived,” said Dr Pankaj Garg, senior consultant, department of neonatology at SGRH.
The newborn was operated at 28 hours of life in which, apart from closing the perforation in the stomach, the doctors also created a surgical opening outside the body so that intestinal waste could exit without passing through the colon, which was also affected by the infection, or the rectum. Postoperatively, the baby had a stormy course. He had to be put on mechanical ventilation and aggressive medication was needed to keep up his blood pressure.
“After 10 days, the baby recovered a little and was put on minimal feed. It took another nine days for the baby to be fit enough to be discharged,” said Dr Neelam Kler, chairperson, department of neonatology at SGRH, adding that such complications were rare in newborns, but one needed to be watchful.
Kelr said, “We had more than 100 deliveries from Covid-positive mothers during the first and the second waves of the pandemic. Only a handful of the newborns tested positive and there were only 5-6 babies who developed complications. We had two Covid-positive newborns who developed encephalopathy (swelling in the brain) due to the infection. There were 2-3 other cases of perforation in the stomach or intestine due to the infection.”
The doctor said it was difficult to save newborns who developed such complications. “Covid-19 can also be dangerous for expecting mothers. It can lead to preterm delivery, preeclampsia (a potentially dangerous complication characterised by high blood pressure), pneumonia, multi-organ failure, encephalopathy and a higher need for ICU admission in them,” added Kler.
All expecting mothers need to get vaccinated against Covid-19 to protect themselves against the infection and complications associated with it. “If a pregnant mother gets infected despite the precautions, it’s better to get the child delivery done at a tertiary care facility where there are adequate facilities to manage potential complications,” Kler said.