{"id":645395,"date":"2026-10-30T02:00:13","date_gmt":"2026-10-30T02:00:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/645395\/"},"modified":"2026-10-30T02:00:13","modified_gmt":"2026-10-30T02:00:13","slug":"covid-19-timing-may-affect-infant-heart-health","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/645395\/","title":{"rendered":"COVID-19 Timing May Affect Infant Heart Health"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Viruses have a long history of causing maternal and fetal harm beyond what most other people who aren\u2019t pregnant may experience. Recent examples are the complications that arose with Zika virus and the resurgence of measles among the antivaccination community. So it\u2019s unsurprising that there are concerns about maternal and fetal health in relation to COVID-19.<\/p>\n<p>In many cases, fetal complications from viral infection happen in the first trimester. Helena Archer, PhD, MPH, and colleagues noticed that the literature lacked research into the impact of COVID-19 infection on <a href=\"https:\/\/www.mayoclinic.org\/diseases-conditions\/congenital-heart-defects-children\/symptoms-causes\/syc-20350074\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer nofollow\">congenital heart disease<\/a> (CHD) risk during or immediately before pregnancy (periconception). They conducted a study to explore this line of inquiry and presented their results at <a href=\"https:\/\/www.idweek.org\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer nofollow\">IDWeek<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Assessing the Impact of COVID-19 on Infants<\/p>\n<p>Dr. Archer and colleagues conducted a retrospective cohort study to assess the impact of COVID-19 infection on pregnant women and their infants. They included women with singleton pregnancies conceived between January 2020 and December 2024.<\/p>\n<p>The researchers collected data on the onset of COVID-19 infection at three different periods of time: periconception, between 1 and 10 weeks, and between 3 and 8 weeks when critical heart development is taking place. They also collected information on <a href=\"https:\/\/www.physiciansweekly.com\/podcast\/does-timing-matter-new-data-on-covid-19-vaccination-during-pregnancy-infant-outcomes?ref=polygonhealthanalytics.com\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer nofollow\">maternal COVID-19 vaccination<\/a> up to 6 months before periconception.<\/p>\n<p>Using these data, they groups the infants according to four CHD outcomes:<\/p>\n<p>Significant CHD (sCHD): At least one major structural cardiac defect identified by means of a validated algorithm<br \/>\nCritical CHD (CCHD): At least one major structural cardiac defect AND cardiac intervention or death within 60 days<br \/>\nVentricular septal defect (VSD)<br \/>\nAtrial septal defect (ASD)<br \/>\nHeart Health Outcomes in Infants<\/p>\n<p>For this study, Dr. Archer and colleagues identified 161,731 mother-infant pairs for their analysis; 3,795 of the pairs were exposed to COVID-19 during gestation. This resulted in 3,200 infant cases of CHD, including 306 sCHD and 64 CCHD cases. They also found that 1,074 infants had VSD and 1,304 infants had ASD.<\/p>\n<p>On closer analysis, the researchers noted a positive association between CCHD and ASD, particularly for women who had a positive polymerase chain reaction test result for COVID-19 between 3 and 8 weeks of gestation. For the 18% of mothers who were vaccinated for COVID-19 up to 6 months before periconception, there was no difference in CHD risk.<\/p>\n<p>These findings show that there is no association between COVID-19 infection during periconception and infant CHD. However, there is an increased risk for ASD, as well as CCHD and VSD among infants without chromosomal defects, when maternal COVID-19 infection occurs between 3 and 8 weeks of gestation. Dr. Archer and colleagues urge that \u201cfurther research is needed to understand the observed patterns and mechanisms through which SARS-CoV-2 infection during critical window in fetal development may impact infant CHD risk, as well as to better understand the role of vaccination.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Viruses have a long history of causing maternal and fetal harm beyond what most other people who aren\u2019t&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":645396,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[134,111,139,69],"class_list":["post-645395","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-health","tag-health","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/645395","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=645395"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/645395\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/645396"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=645395"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=645395"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=645395"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}