The risks of severe neonatal morbidity, neonatal death, and admission to the neonatal intensive care unit were all significantly lower during the first month of birth in infants whose mothers were vaccinated against Covid-19, and protection against the virus continued for up to six months after birth, according to a new study published Monday in JAMA Pediatrics.
“We hypothesized that this might be because we know that severe Covid in pregnancy is associated with pregnancy complications and so by protecting the mom, you would expect that perhaps incidence would be at a lower risk for some of those severe outcomes,” said Sarah Jorgensen, a researcher and pharmacist at the Institute of Medical Science at the University of Toronto and the first author on the study.