Are there any known cases of infants inheriting a mother’s Covid-19 related pre-existing condition ? I don’t mean infants born while the mother is infected with the virus, but infants born long after the mother is symptom-free. My interest was prompted by the rise in long-term residual effects of Covid-19 long after the illness has been treated. There will no doubt be hundreds of thousands of Americans who will have a hard time getting insured because of their pre-existing conditions, if the ACA is repealed. Can infants inherit these pre-existing conditions?
“Newborns can become infected with the virus that causes COVID-19 during childbirth or by exposure to sick caregivers after delivery. If you have COVID-19 or are waiting for test results due to symptoms, it’s recommended during hospitalization after childbirth that you wear a cloth face mask and have clean hands when caring for your newborn. Keeping your newborn’s crib by your bed while you are in the hospital is OK, but it’s also recommended that you maintain a reasonable distance from your baby when possible. When these steps are taken, the risk of a newborn becoming infected with the COVID-19 virus is low. Research suggests that only about 2% to 5% of infants born to women with COVID-19 near the time of delivery test positive for the virus in the days after birth. However, if you are severely ill with COVID-19, you might need to be temporarily separated from your newborn.”
The issue as I see it is how do you determine if the contraction of Covid is pre or postnatal? As stated, it could from anyone in the delivery room or anyone including the mother after the birth. There’s always the possibility, even after a clean reading of the mother, that she could still be contagious and asymptomatic.
If anything, I’d think if the mother had Covid and recovered, her antibodies would have been passed on the the baby. However, it’s still unclear whether contraction of Covid is a once had it, immune for life virus and some who tested negative after infection have contracted it again.
I’ll leave the politics out of it, but AFAIK, whether having contracted Covid would quality as a pre-existing condition is still undecided.
An infant can’t “inherit” something that’s not genetic.
If COVID damaged Mom’s heart 3 years before the conception that says nothing about the heart the fetus will grow. To the degree Mom has e.g. really crappy oxygenation due to her COVID-induced weak heart that might harm the fetus in general.
But there’s no reason to think the outcome would be a fetus with a bad heart as opposed to some other developmental problem. And our experience with weak hearts in general is that it has a very small impact on fetal health. Mom’s smoking while pregnant OTOH …
Bottom line: worrying about COVID harming future fetuses genetically is a silly mirage.
I don’t even understand the question. Can a baby inherit cancer because the Mum had cancer and also had covid while she was pregnant? What?
I think the OP is asking about fetuses contracting COVID in utero, and then developing long-term complications from it. Though of course, this could happen independently of whether it happens to the mother.
I may be missing something, but HIV positive and heroin addicted babies are a reality. Neither one is a genetic disorder.
Agreed.
But neither of those things is “inherited” in the strict biological sense of the word which requires a genetic modification of the germline such that all future offspring of the affected infant will also have that feature.
Which was the sense I was using the term. You’re right that less formal definitions of “inherited” could be used to describe any disease or disability picked up in utero.
At the limit we get the bumper sticker definition of “inherited”:
Insanity is hereditary. You get it from your children.
See also:
Understood and agreed.
The OP’s question would be better stated and accurate if he/she asked if an infant can be infected as stated in the quote posted above.
However, there’s a bit of confusion and stigma attached to the term infected and people do, as you’ve stated sometimes use the term interchangeably.
Actually, as I read the OP they were explicitly not asking whether an infant could (or would) contract COVID if the mother became infected during pregnancy.
They were very clearly asking whether some permanent disability the mother picked up as a consequence of a prior COVID infection could be passed on during a subsequent pregnancy so the child would have the same birth defect or innate disability.
IOW: In 2020 Mom gets COVID and forever after has a weak heart when she had not had that problem pre-COVID. In 2022 Mom gets pregnant and baby is born in 2023. Will the baby have a weak heart from birth?
That’s the question the OP was asking. At least as I read it.
But the OP was asking about pre-existing conditions, not about an infant being born with an infectious disease. I think. A baby can be born with HIV but it’s got nothing to do with covid.