Evidence is mounting that infants and toddlers may be protected from the worst effects of Covid-19 infection if their mothers were vaccinated during pregnancy.
A new study published Wednesday in The Lancet Infectious Diseases found that infants whose mothers received two doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech or Moderna vaccines during pregnancy had a 61% lower risk of Covid-19 hospitalization or death in their first 6 months of life, compared with babies born to unvaccinated mothers.
The study is the latest in a series of reports suggesting that maternal Covid-19 vaccination during pregnancy can provide protection to infants for several months after birth. A study published in January in the journal JAMA Pediatrics found that babies born to vaccinated mothers had a 50% lower risk of Covid-19 infection during their first 6 months of life.
The new study is larger than the previous one and looked specifically at the risk of hospitalization or death. It included data on more than 70,000 infants in the United States who were born between December 2020 and September 2021.
Of the infants included in the study, 11.4% were born to mothers who were vaccinated during pregnancy, while 88.6% were born to unvaccinated mothers. During the follow-up period, 0.2% of the infants born to vaccinated mothers were hospitalized or died from Covid-19, compared with 0.5% of the infants born to unvaccinated mothers.
The researchers found that the protection from maternal vaccination was similar for both boys and girls and for all races and ethnicities. They also found that the protection was strongest in infants whose mothers were vaccinated in the third trimester of pregnancy.
The study’s findings add to the growing body of evidence that maternal Covid-19 vaccination during pregnancy can help to protect infants from the virus. The findings also support the recommendations from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) that all pregnant women get vaccinated against Covid-19.
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