{"id":164878,"date":"2020-04-28T15:31:02","date_gmt":"2020-04-28T19:31:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/sph\/?p=164878"},"modified":"2020-09-17T10:19:12","modified_gmt":"2020-09-17T14:19:12","slug":"how-does-covid-19-affect-babies","status":"publish","type":"bu-article","link":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/sph\/news\/articles\/2020\/how-does-covid-19-affect-babies\/","title":{"rendered":"How Does COVID-19 Affect Babies?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\n\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t
April 28, 2020<\/div>\n\t\t\n\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t
\n\t\t\tTwitter<\/span><\/span>\n\t\t\tFacebook<\/span><\/span>\n\t\t\t<\/span>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

\"WomanMillions of people have contracted the new coronavirus, including some who are pregnant or breastfeeding. But it is still unknown if COVID-19 will affect their babies\u2019 development, or how.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe know very little about how this viral infection may affect the health of pregnant women, pregnancy outcomes, and development of the child,\u201d says Patricia Janulewicz Lloyd<\/a>, assistant professor of environmental health at the School of Public Health. \u201cNumerous pregnant and nursing women will be exposed to this virus, and we need to understand the impacts this exposure may have on them and their children.\u201d<\/p>\n

Now, Janulewicz is part of a team investigating the short- and long-term effects of the coronavirus in pregnancy and breastfeeding<\/a> as part of the MotherToBaby Pregnancy Studies.<\/p>\n

The MotherToBaby coronavirus study<\/a> is open to pregnant and breastfeeding women in the United States and Canada who suspect or have confirmed that they had COVID-19. The study itself will consist of phone calls over the course of volunteers\u2019 pregnancies and after delivery, and\/or breastmilk samples, as well as a release of medical records related to the pregnancy and the infant\u2019s development.<\/p>\n

Led by Christina Chambers of the University of California San Diego (UCSD), MotherToBaby<\/a> is an ongoing project by birth defect researchers from the non-profit Organization of Teratology Information Specialists (OTIS). MotherToBaby studies normally focus on medications and other exposures that a woman may experience during pregnancy and breastfeeding and the developmental effects on the child.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe MotherToBaby program has been working as a team for over a decade on similar studies, examining different exposures during pregnancy, and is ideally situated to conduct such a study on the novel coronavirus,\u201d says Janulewicz, who serves as the associate director of MotherToBaby\u2019s neurodevelopmental follow-up program, which assesses the long-term effects of exposures on children\u2019s emotional, learning, memory, and other neurological development.<\/p>\n

Janulewicz and the director of the neurodevelopmental follow-up program, Jane Adams of the University of Massachusetts Boston, will incorporate and oversee the neurodevelopmental follow-up components of later COVID-19 studies, to examine the longer-term effects of prenatal exposure to the new coronavirus.<\/p>\n

\u2014Michelle Samuels<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

Pregnant women and breastfeeding mothers can enroll in the study\u00a0at mothertobaby.org\/join-study\/<\/a>\u00a0or by calling MotherToBaby Pregnancy Studies at (877) 311-8972.<\/em><\/p>\n

Health care providers can refer pregnant and breastfeeding patients with known or suspected COVID-19 infection at\u00a0mothertobaby.org\/healthcare-professional-referral-form\/<\/a>\u00a0or by calling MotherToBaby Pregnancy Studies at (877) 311-8972.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Patricia Janulewicz Lloyd is investigating the effects of coronavirus exposure in utero and through breastfeeding in a new MotherToBaby Pregnancy Study.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10989,"featured_media":164889,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","template":"","meta":{"bu_prepress_billboard":"","_bu_prepress_primary_term":"","_bu_prepress_primary_term_manual":""},"tags":[2225,2488,2518,3430,3434,2525,506,2157,1537,2340],"bu-publication":[3516],"sphnews-article-category":[3519,3526,3529,3531,3540],"sphnews-topic":[],"bu_edition":[],"media_type":[],"profile_tax":[270],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/sph\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/bu-article\/164878"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/sph\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/bu-article"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/sph\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/bu-article"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/sph\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10989"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/sph\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=164878"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/sph\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/bu-article\/164878\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":172840,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/sph\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/bu-article\/164878\/revisions\/172840"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/sph\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/164889"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/sph\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=164878"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/sph\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=164878"},{"taxonomy":"bu-publication","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/sph\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/bu-publication?post=164878"},{"taxonomy":"sphnews-article-category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/sph\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/sphnews-article-category?post=164878"},{"taxonomy":"sphnews-topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/sph\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/sphnews-topic?post=164878"},{"taxonomy":"bu_edition","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/sph\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/bu_edition?post=164878"},{"taxonomy":"media_type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/sph\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media_type?post=164878"},{"taxonomy":"profile_tax","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/sph\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/profile_tax?post=164878"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}