Longitudinal Evaluation of Antibody Persistence in Mother-Infant…

Research question

How do COVID-19 severity, timing of infection and later vaccination affect antibody transfer and persistence in mother-infant pairs?

Clinical & scientific significance

Vaccination during pregnancy after recovering from COVID-19 is a strategy to boost antibodies in both mother and infant.

Key findings reported in the paper

68% of women had all three antibody isotypes at delivery; 96% had at least one.
Detectable IgG in infants fell from 78% at birth to 52% at 6 months.
Predictors of infant IgG at birth: third-trimester infection (OR 4.0), mild/moderate (OR 4.8) or severe/critical disease (OR 6.3), and maternal vaccination before delivery (OR 18.8).

Infants with detectable anti-spike IgG

Infants with detectable anti-spike IgG
At birth	78% (78%)
At 6 months	52% (52%)

Different numbers of infant samples at each time point (122 at birth, 48 at 6 months). Data as reported in the publication abstract.

Objectives

To measure anti-spike IgG, IgM and IgA in mothers and infants at enrollment, delivery and 6 months.

Methods

Longitudinal cohort of 256 pregnant women with PCR-confirmed infection and 135 infants; sera analyzed by ELISA.

This summary is based only on the published abstract.

Antibodies from mother to baby

01
Maternal infection
Mothers make anti-spike IgG, IgM and IgA; 96% had at least one at delivery.
02
Across the placenta
IgG is actively transported to the fetus.
General background
03
At birth
78% of infants had detectable IgG.
04
At 6 months
52% still had detectable IgG.
05
Vaccination boost
Vaccination before delivery was the strongest predictor of infant IgG.

Placental IgG transfer is general physiology; the percentages are from the J Infect Dis 2023 cohort. Conceptual illustration — not experimental data.

Read the publication

Free full text (PMC): PMC9494415 (opens in a new tab)

COVID-19 in pregnancyMaternal-infant immunology

Authors

Cambou MC, Liu CM, Mok T, Fajardo-Martinez V, Paiola SG, Ibarrondo FJ, Kerin T, Fuller T, Tobin NH, Garcia G, Bhattacharya D, Aldrovandi GM, Arumugaswami V, Foo SS, Jung JU, Vasconcelos Z, Brasil P, Brendolin M, Yang OO, Rao R, Nielsen-Saines K

Citation

Longitudinal Evaluation of Antibody Persistence in Mother-Infant Dyads After Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus 2 Infection in Pregnancy. J Infect Dis. 2023; 227(2):236-245. doi:10.1093/infdis/jiac366. PMID: 36082433.

Longitudinal Evaluation of Antibody Persistence in Mother-Infant Dyads After Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus 2 Infection in Pregnancy