For breastfeeding moms, COVID-19 vaccinations may also protect babies

https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2021-04/wuso-fbm040621.php

 

News Release 6-Apr-2021
Major boost in COVID-19 antibodies seen in breast milk after vaccination
Washington University School of Medicine

 

Nursing mothers who receive a COVID-19 vaccine may pass protective antibodies to their babies through breast milk for at least 80 days following vaccination, suggests new research from Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis.

"Our study showed a huge boost in antibodies against the COVID-19 virus in breast milk starting two weeks after the first shot, and this response was sustained for the course of our study, which was almost three months long," said first author Jeannie Kelly, MD, assistant professor of obstetrics and gynecology. "The antibodies levels were still high at the end of our study, so the protection likely extends even longer."

Based on the small study, involving five mothers who provided frozen breast milk samples after receiving the two-dose Pfizer-BioNTech coronavirus vaccine, the research provides some of the first peer-reviewed evidence that breastfeeding confers a long-lasting immune response in the nursing infants and toddlers of vaccinated mothers.


•••••