A baby girl in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, has died after her mother suffered from COVID-19 symptoms so intense, it sent her into premature labor. According to East Baton Rouge Parish Coroner Beau Clark, the unnamed infant did not actually test positive for the respiratory virus, but her death is still being considered COVID-19-related "because of the positive nature of the mother."
The sad news was shared Monday, during a press briefing held by the coroner's office on Facebook Live.
“We had a pregnant mother who went to the hospital that was having COVID-19-related symptoms," Clark shared, adding that the woman's symptoms included shortness of breath and a fever. "She ultimately ended up having to be placed on the ventilator because of the profound nature of the shortness of breath and has tested positive for the COVID-19 virus.
“Unfortunately … she went into preterm labor and ultimately delivered the baby prematurely,” Clark continued. “And in doing so, the baby, because of the extreme prematurity, did not survive.”
The mother, who has not been identified, is still alive but remains on a ventilator.
According to the Advocate, the baby was delivered more than three months early, during the mother's 22nd week of pregnancy.
"Had she not been COVID-19 positive, had not required [ventilator] support, had not had the shortness of breath … likely she would not have gone into preterm labor and there would have been a different outcome," Clark said, noting the critical role that oxygen deficiency played in the infant's death.
The coroner added that the "incredibly sad case" is yet another reminder why it is so important Americans heed government warnings right now to stay home and abide by social distancing guidelines.
“We would hope that this would never happen here in our state but it has, and we’re certainly left with dealing with that issue,” Clark continued.
Sadly, the Louisiana infant isn't the first baby to have died from the respiratory illness, which has claimed more than 11,000 American lives so far.
Last month, Illinois Department of Health Director Dr. Ngozi Ezike announced the death of an infant who had tested positive for COVID-19 — the first known death of a child the US had seen to date.
“Today is a really hard day," Ezike said. "I’m reporting 465 new cases and 13 additional deaths, including the tragic death of an infant."
Within days, a 7-week-old baby in Connecticut became the second US child to succumb to the coronavirus. The news was announced April 1 on Twitter by the state's governor, Ned Lamont.
"This is absolutely heartbreaking," Lamont tweeted. "We believe this is one of the youngest lives lost anywhere due to complications relating to COVID-19."
When news of the coronavirus first began making its way around the world, babies and children were thought to be spared from the deadly virus.
Doctors initially believed only the elderly (aged 60+), as well as those with underlying health conditions such as asthma and diabetes, were at risk. However, as virus cases have climbed to more than 377,000, many exceptions have emerged.
To be clear, pediatric cases do remain low compared to those of adults, and of the 11,200 deaths to date in the US, only two have been children. Still, the risks are clearly exist.
Also of growing concern is the theory that children may actually be silent carriers of the virus, who either show mild symptoms or none at all.
“We don’t think many kids get severe disease, so are kids transmitting the disease at a significant rate that’s going to propagate this outbreak?” asked Dr. Srinivas Murthy, an associate professor of pediatrics at the University of British Columbia, who spoke with the New York Times this week.
According to a study by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 2,572 of the nearly 150,000 confirmed coronavirus cases reported in the US between February 12 and April 2 were patients younger than 18. Of those children, the median age was 11, and the largest number of cases (850) were in New York City, which is currently the nation's epicenter. Another 584 pediatric cases came from the greater New York State area, and 393 were from New Jersey.
Still, the number of severe cases among children remains low -- and it continues to baffle doctors.
“Compared to other respiratory diseases, this is incredibly unique in the proportion of severely ill children,” Murthy told the New York Times. “We would expect more hospitalization based on the number of kids that might get infected, and we’re not seeing that at all. And we still don’t know why.”
Also unknown is to what extent pregnant women remain vulnerable to the virus.
So far, there haven't been an overwhelming number of cases involving pregnant mothers. Still, based on what we already know about how serious viruses can be during pregnancy, the CDC has issued new guidelines for US mothers.
"Pregnant women experience immunologic and physiologic changes which might make them more susceptible to viral respiratory infections, including COVID-19," the CDC website explained. "Pregnant women also might be at risk for severe illness, morbidity, or mortality compared to the general population as observed in cases of other related coronavirus infections [including severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus (SARS-CoV) and Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus (MERS-CoV)] and other viral respiratory infections, such as influenza, during pregnancy."
In the meantime, the CDC is urging pregnant mothers to use precautions, including frequently washing hands and abiding by social distance guidelines.
For now, doctors on the front line are struggling to keep up with the influx of cases hitting emergency rooms across the nation.
Behind the scenes, scientists are working feverishly to learn more about the virus, which has already claimed more than 76,000 lives worldwide.
More than 140 experimental drug treatments and vaccines for the coronavirus are in development throughout the world, the Wall Street Journal reported.
“We have never gone so fast with so many resources in such a short time frame,” Paul Stoffels, chief scientific officer of Johnson & Johnson, told the Wall Street Journal.
Still, a race for a vaccine is likely a year away — at best.
“I think we can find something that, at least, helps people out,” Derek Lowe, a veteran drug researcher, told the newspaper. “Whether any of these things work well enough to get people out of their houses, that’s another question. Maybe it works well enough to reduce the number of people who go on ventilators.”
