Características clínicas y epidemiológicas de madres con COVID-19 y sus neonatos: transmisión vertical

Introduction COVID-19 disease can affect women at any stage of pregnancy, and newborns could become infected with SARS-CoV-2 through vertical or horizontal transmission. Objective To determine clinical and epidemiological characteristics of mothers with COVID-19, associated neonatal outcomes, and to evaluate SARS-CoV-2 vertical transmission. Methods We conducted an observational, descriptive, cross-sectional study. We included all mothers with positive serology for SARS-CoV-2 and their newborns at the Hospital Regional Docente de Trujillo from April 18 to September 30, 2020. Vari ables were collected from the medical records, and descriptive statistics were used for the analysis. Results A total of 647 mothers and 656 neonates were enrolled. Of all live births, 85.3% and 14.7% were term and preterm neonates, respectively. We found 1.7% (11/656) of newborns with positive RT-PCR for SARS-CoV-2; and that 27.3% (3/11) of these neonates required hospitalization. Neonatal mortality was 4/656 (0.6%), and no case was attributed to COVID-19. Of all mothers affected with COVID-19, 95.7% were asymptomatic, and 4.3% presented clinical symptoms attributed to COVID-19, most of which were mild. The most frequent obstetric complications were preeclampsia-eclampsia, prelabour rupture of membranes, and acute fetal distress. All the mothers were discharged. Conclusion We found 1.7% of newborns with positive RT-PCR test for SARS-CoV-2; and that 20.1% of these neonates were hospitalized. The most frequent morbidity was neonatal sepsis and prematurity. The infection was mild among newborns, showing a 0.6% overall mortality, with no cases attributed to COVID-19. We found that only 5% of mothers presented symptoms, most of which were mild to moderate symptoms. There was no record of maternal mortality in this study group. It is not possible to conclude whet her vertical transmission or intrapartum-acquired infection is responsible for neonatal COVID-19 infections.