Scientists answer key questions on COVID-19, breast milk

By Sharon Isaalah

Since the pandemic hit, headlines have been full of fluids.

There are droplets sprayed when we talk or cough, nasal secretions swabbed for testing, and blood checked for antibodies.

But some scientists have focused on a different bodily product: breast milk. Unlike the others, milk is a fluid made for sharing.

That has raised serious questions about its safety during the crisis, for mothers feeding babies as well as for milk banks handling donations.

When an advisory panel for Australian Red Cross Lifeblood, which manages milk banking as well as blood donation, met in March, “there was a lot that was still unknown about Covid-19,” Laura Klein, a researcher with the organization, wrote through email.

“We didn’t know then if the virus could be transmitted through breast milk,” as some other viruses, including HIV and cytomegalovirus, can.

If the virus lurked in breast milk, should infected mothers give their babies formula instead?

There were more unknowns. Did breast milk from previously infected women carry antibodies, and could those antibodies protect babies — or maybe other people?

With more than 250 papers on Covid-19 and infant feeding published since February, researchers are beginning to answer these questions, while at the same time contributing to the poorly understood field of breast milk science more generally.

They’re discovering that in the time of Covid-19, breast milk is not a fluid to fear. In the early stages of the pandemic, though, governments were highly careful when it came to breast milk.

In China, where the new coronavirus first originated, a group of physicians and researchers developed an expert consensus on how to handle infected mothers.

Published in February, the document said that infected mothers, and even those with suspected infections, should not breastfeed their babies.

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As the virus spread globally, other countries were similarly cautious.

In unpublished research, a team of researchers including experts from Alive & Thrive, a global organization dedicated to maternal and child nutrition, reviewed guidelines on Covid-19 and newborn care from 33 countries.

They found that 49 per cent either advised against breastfeeding or created hurdles such as counselling families on the risks of breastfeeding or requiring a negative swab test first, wrote nutritionist Jennifer Cashin, one of the study authors said.