Children and COVID-19 Research Library

The COVID-19 pandemic has posed a serious challenge to the lactating women to practice optimal infant and young child feeding. Although international and national agencies developed appropriate evidence-based guidelines early in the pandemic, availability of this information to the mothers and their caregivers needs to be enhanced. This becomes important in view of apprehension about the risk of a decline in breastfeeding practices during the pandemic due to various factors. Any decrease in the breastfeeding rates may lead to increased childhood morbidity, mortality, and malnutrition. This article provides a glimpse of available evidence-based guidelines on breastfeeding by Covid-19 positive mothers and attempts by the baby food industry to exploit the situation by promoting their products. The article also deals with infection prevention and control measures to be observed by the mother while caring and breastfeeding her baby and other action required to protect breastfeeding from commercial influence.

The COVID-19 New Mum Study is recording maternal experiences and infant feeding during the UK lockdown. This report from week 1 of the survey describes and compares the delivery and post-natal experiences of women who delivered before the lockdown versus during the lockdown.

The COVID-19 pandemic threatens global newborn health. This paper describes the current state of national and local protocols for managing neonates born to SARS-CoV-2-positive mothers. Care providers from neonatal intensive care units on six continents exchanged and compared protocols on the management of neonates born to SARS-CoV-2-positive mothers. Data collection was between March 14 and 21, 2020. The study is focused on central protocol components, including triaging, hygiene precautions, management at delivery, feeding protocols, and visiting policies.

Breastfeeding is the cornerstone of infant and young child survival, nutrition and development and maternal health. The World Health Organization recommends exclusive breastfeeding for the first 6 months of life, followed by continued breastfeeding with appropriate complementary foods for up to 2 years and beyond.
This scientific brief examines the evidence to date on the risks of transmission of COVID-19 from an infected mother to her baby through breastfeeding as well as evidence on the risks to child health from not breastfeeding

In December 2019, a pneumonia caused by a previously unknown coronavirus emerged in Wuhan, Hubei Province, China. During the subsequent weeks and months, the disease, later named COVID-19, spread rapidly nationwide and globally, and was declared a global pandemic by the World Health Organization. Existing studies have confirmed that all people are susceptible to this novel coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2). Cases of COVID-19 among pregnant and lactating women have also been confirmed. Chinese guidelines recommend suspending breastfeeding if the mother is suspected or confirmed with COVID-19. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention of the USA have published recommendations for mothers with COVID-19 and their family members and healthcare providers on whether and how to start or continue breastfeeding. However, none of the above recommendations provide relevant supporting evidence. As existing recommendations on whether mothers with COVID-19 should continue breastfeeding are still conflicting. We aimed to conduct a rapid review of the mother-to-child transmission of COVID-19 during breastfeeding.