Baby With COVID-19 Antibodies Born To Vaccinated South FL Mother

BOCA RATON, FL — A pregnant health care worker from Boca Raton who received the COVID-19 vaccine passed the virus’ antibodies on to her newborn, WPBF reported.

Two Palm Beach County pediatricians, Dr. Paul Gilbert and Dr. Chad Rudnick, believe the baby girl is the first child born with the antibodies after a mother’s vaccination.

The mother received her first dose of the Moderna COVID-19 vaccine when she was 36 weeks pregnant. Three weeks later, her daughter was born, reports said.

The doctors tested the baby’s cord blood and found she had the COVID-19 antibodies. This shows “there is potential for protection and infection risk reduction from (COVID-19)…with maternal vaccination,” according to a paper they published on the mother and child in medRxiv, an online archive for unpublished medical papers.

More studies need to be done, though, as it’s still uncertain how much protection these antibodies offer the child and the “ideal timing” for the mother to get vaccinated prior to delivery, they said.

“The duration of antibody protection in this population is not yet known and serial total antibody measurements may be used to determine how long protection is expected which may help to determine when the best time would be to begin vaccination in newborns born to mothers who received a vaccine for (COVID-19),” the pediatricians wrote.

Their finding comes at a time when coronavirus vaccination is ramping up in Florida. As of Tuesday morning, more than 4.3 million people in the state have received at least one dose of the vaccine, according to state data.

There are currently three brands of the vaccine approved for emergency use in the United States: Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna, both a two-dose series, and the Johnson & Johnson brand, which is a single shot.

Gov. Ron DeSantis expanded eligibility for the vaccine to all Floridians 60 and older starting Monday. Frontline health care workers, residents and staff of nursing homes, individuals who are medically vulnerable, and all teachers, police officers, and firefighters 50 and older are also eligible for the vaccine.

The governor has also indicated that the state could open up vaccine eligibility to all adults 18 and older by April.

Though the number of coronavirus cases confirmed in Florida has slowed in recent weeks, nearly 5,000 new cases were reported Tuesday, according to the state’s Department of Health COVID-19 dashboard.

Nearly 2 million COVID-19 cases have been recorded in Florida since the start of the pandemic and more than 33,000 people have died, according to the DOH.