Nottingham neonatal experts research COVID-19 in new born babies | Latest news

The Neonatal Complications of Coronavirus (COVID-19) study has been set up nationally to understand more about the ways that the virus can affect babies in their first month of life, and how many babies born to women with Coronavirus may need neonatal care. 

The study is also collecting a range of information to help to describe which babies develop COVID-19 infection, what symptoms or signs they have, and describe how COVID-19 in babies is identified and treated.

The surveillance approach for the study, developed with the British Paediatric Surveillance Unit (BPSU), means this will be one of the few studies in the world to capture data from a whole patient population across an entire healthcare system – in this case the NHS. This research will be crossed- linked to UKOSS (the UK Obstetric Surveillance System Study) which also being run at NUH and is investigating how COVID-19 affects women in pregnancy.

Dr Don Sharkey, (pictured) Clinical Associate Professor of Neonatal Medicine at the University of Nottingham, and a Neonatal Consultant at NUH is a co-investigator on the study which is led by the University of Oxford. He says: “It is very rare for COVID-19 to be transmitted from mother to baby, and even when it does the babies tend to remain well, with very mild symptoms of Coronavirus.”

There have, however, been examples of this kind of COVID-19 transmission nationally. And study investigators will shortly be feeding in data reports relating to mothers and babies collected during March and April, to inform the Government advisors on COVID-19, including SAGE (the government’s Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies).

The information will also be used by NHS England and the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists, the Royal College of Paediatricians.

Pregnant women who are diagnosed with COVID-19 either one week before or one week after giving birth, along with new-born babies in their first 28 days of life with a positive diagnosis, are eligible to be included in the study.

The surveillance period for this investigation lasts until April 2021.

While COVID-19 isn’t thought to have a serious impact on most children, researchers are keen to learn more about the indirect effect of Coronavirus on babies. Dr Sharkey has submitted applications to the National Instituite for Health Research to support for further studies on COVID-19 and these patient groups, including a study to follow-up on the outcomes for babies who had a Coronavirus infection.

More information about the neonatal complications study can be found at the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health (RCPCH) website here.

Advice for pregnant women during COVID-19 is available on the NHS website.