The announcement that King Charles III has been diagnosed with cancer has come as a shock to many in Britain, largely because the 75-year-old monarch has generally enjoyed good health through the years
By
SYLVIA HUI Associated Press
February 5, 2024, 3:40 PM ET
4 min read
LONDON -- The announcement Monday that King Charles III has been diagnosed with cancer has come as a shock to many in Britain, largely because the 75-year-old monarch has generally enjoyed good health through the years.
Palace officials did not specify what kind of cancer the king has, or how serious his condition is. They only said that it was discovered during the kings recent hospital treatment for an enlarged prostate, but isn't prostate cancer.
Charles who came to the throne after his mother Queen Elizabeth II died in September 2022 has started a schedule of regular treatments and will postpone public-facing duties, officials said.
Here is a look at Charles' health history, from contracting COVID-19 to a series of injuries sustained from playing polo and hunting over the decades:
PROSTATE TREATMENT
Charles was discharged from a private London hospital a week ago after undergoing treatment on an enlarged prostate.
Officials said the condition was benign, though the king canceled engagements and was urged to rest before the procedure.
An enlarged prostate is common in men over age 50 and affects thousands in the U.K. The condition affects how one urinates and isnt usually a serious health threat. Its not cancer and doesnt lead to an increased risk of developing prostate cancer.
Palace officials said the king publicized details about his condition in an effort to encourage other men to have their prostates checked in line with public health advice.
COVID-19
Charles had COVID-19 twice, but officials said that he only suffered mild symptoms both times.
He isolated at home in Scotland in March 2020, during the early days of the pandemic in the U.K. and before vaccines were available. He remained in good health, though he lost his sense of taste and smell for a time. Charles later spoke of the strange, frustrating and often distressing experience of being isolated from friends and family during lockdown.
Charles contracted the coronavirus a second time in February 2022. He had been triple-vaccinated at the time.
SPORTS INJURIES
Charles was a keen polo player and suffered an array of injuries over years of sports and exercise.
In 1980 he was thrown and kicked by his pony during a polo match at Windsor and needed six stitches on his cheek.
In the 1990s he underwent several operations after he broke his right arm in a fall during a polo match and injured his left knee during another game.
In 2001 he was knocked unconscious and taken to the hospital in an ambulance when his horse threw him during a polo match he was playing with his sons Prince William and Prince Harry.
Charles also had various injuries from hunting accidents. He broke a rib when he fell from his horse in 1998, and in 2001 he fractured a small bone in his shoulder after another tumble.
The king retired from playing polo after more than 40 years in 2005.
SAUSAGE FINGERS?
There has long been speculation about Charles' swollen sausage fingers, with some suggesting they may be due to fluid build-up, arthritis or other conditions.
Whether the puffy digits are due to a health condition remains unexplained, but Charles has on more than one occasion jokingly referenced them himself.
In a BBC documentary on Charles' coronation, the king was seen reassuring his son Prince William when he struggled to fasten one of the ceremonial robes. He jokingly told William not to worry, because you haven't got sausage fingers like mine.
MINOR TREATMENTS
Charles has had other minor medical treatments over the years.
In 2008 he had a non-cancerous growth removed from the bridge of his nose in a minor, routine procedure. He had a hernia operation at a private hospital in 2003, and joked hernia today, gone tomorrow to waiting reporters when he was discharged the next day.
Charles, who has a degenerative disc at the base of his spine, has also spoken about his back pain. He is known to travel on royal tours with a cushion, and a velvet cushion is usually placed on his chair during state banquets at Buckingham Palace.
In his memoir Spare, Prince Harry wrote about Charles' exercises at home to keep his constant" neck and back pain in check.
About 1 in 5 adolescents report symptoms of anxiety or depression, according to a KFF analysis of a new federal survey of teen health.
While some teens are getting mental health care, a significant share say they are not receiving the therapy they need due to costs, fear of what others will think, and/or not knowing how to get help.
Data from the recently released Teen National Health Interview Survey from July 2021 to December 2022, reveals that 21% of adolescents ages 12-17 report experiencing symptoms of anxiety in the past two weeks, and 17% said they had symptoms of depression.
Female adolescents were more than twice as likely as their male peers to report feelings of anxiety (31% vs. 12%) and depression (25% vs. 10%) during the survey period. Rates were highest among LGBT+ adolescents, with 43%reporting symptoms of anxiety and 37% saying they had symptoms of depression.
The results of the survey unique in that they represent direct responses from adolescents themselves, rather than from their parents or guardians come at a time of heightened concern about the state of American teenagers mental health.
The analysis also examines data on the rates of adolescent drug overdoses, suicide and self-harm, by race/ethnicity and sex. It also examines access to therapy and the share of adolescents who report negative experiences, such as bullying.
While studies have documented rising mental health problems among adolescents in the U.S. for years, the trend was exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic. Since 2021, the U.S. Surgeon General has twice issued advisories about the challenges to youth mental health, including the threat posed by excessive social media use.
Among the other key takeaways from KFFs analysis:
The full analysis, Recent Trends in Mental Health and Substance use Concerns Among Adolescents, is available here.
Also recently released by KFF are two related analyses: One takes stock of the latest efforts in the states to combat the opioid epidemic and another describes the supply and characteristics of substance use and mental health treatment facilities across the U.S.
Representational image
A novel gene editing platform OmiCrisp, by Bengaluru-based startup CrisprBits, is monitoring sewage crisamples to track the highly transmissible JN.1 variant of the COVID-19 virus in the city.
OmiCrisp is a testing platform based on CRISPR, a breakthrough gene-editing technology, for rapid diagnosis and surveillance of SARS-CoV2. It is monitoring the Omicron-derived JN.1 variant in sewage samples from 14 localities in Bengaluru every week, the company said.
The CRISPR-based test not only detects the virus but also distinguishes variants of the Omicron lineage from other previously known variants of concern. This technology can specifically discriminate the actual base changes as the virus mutates, instead of relying on the absence of signal due to sequence changes.
In the Journal of Biotechnology and Biomedicine, OmiCrisp was validated in 80 clinical samples and more than 160 wastewater samples with a remarkable 99% accuracy, the company said. Clinical samples were cross-validated against the highly accurate next-generation sequencing platform, while wastewater results were compared using approved qRTPCR tests.
"OmiCrisp validation is one of the first studies to employ CRISPR-based testing in environmental samples," said Vijay Chandru, an author on the study, Chief Scientific Officer and Co-Founder, CrisprBits, in a statement.
Notably, the CRISPR-based test demonstrated tolerance to poor-quality samples derived from sewage, highlighting its utility in discerning even single base changes in matrices of inferior stability.
Founded in 2020 by five distinguished alumni of BITS-Pilani, CrisprBits is a startup incubated by Bengaluru-based Centre for Cellular and Molecular Platforms (C-CAMP). It aims to bring innovative solutions using the CRISPR technology.
"OmiCrisp is a CRISPR-based one-stop diagnostic and screening tool for Omicron variant and its lineages has shown a remarkable accuracy of up to 99% in both clinical and sewage samples. This has enormous implications for India's pandemic preparedness for COVID and other infectious disease outbreaks," said Taslimarif Saiyed, Director CEO of C-CAMP, in the statement.
CrisprBits is currently focused on launching its point-of-need instrument light platform, PathCrisp, in 2024, for clinical and environmental surveillance.
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The above article has been published from a wire agency with minimal modifications to the headline and text.
Parents and caregivers of young children, you can show your children how much you care and help them stay healthy by keeping medicines in a safe place when you spend time together. Kids (and pets!) can get sick if they swallow medicines, vitamins, or other supplements theyre not supposed to (including gummies).
Learn how to keep medicines somewhere safe at UpAndAway.org at https://upandaway.org.
If you think a child might have swallowed a medicine, vitamin, or other supplement, get help right away even if youre not sure. Call Poison Help at 800-222-1222 or go to https://PoisonHelp.org.
The Library of Congress has launched a new campaign to record and archive millions of COVID-19 pandemic stories.
The worlds largest library has launched a new campaign to record and archive millions of COVID-19 pandemic stories.
The Library of Congress is calling for many different American voices to share their experiences for posterity.
You can read something in a history book, but to hear someones voice tell of their lived experience is immensely powerful, said Nicole Saylor, director of the librarys American Folklife Center, which is leading the project.
Curators and researchers at the library have teamed up with the nonprofit group StoryCorps to gather and archive countless oral narratives.
People who want to capture their story can use several different methods through StoryCorps. The group has a suite of self-directed documentation systems and recording sites around the country, Saylor said.
When the oral narration is complete, storytellers can save their accounts in the Library of Congress archive.
Saylor said every story collected is just as important as the next.
Our goal is to capture the stories of people who survived, to honor those who lost their lives to this disease, and talk with front line health care workers, she said. We want to get a good geographical spread on this, with a lot of different communities and perspectives into the archives.
The library has other similar first-person storytelling projects to preserve history, including topics on Pearl Harbor, 9/11 and Hurricane Katrina.
Archivists are in the early stages of collecting pandemic tales, which will take the next three years to complete. Saylor said the goal now is to get as many people as possible to recount their stories.
You can really tell the story about the American experience though one persons story, Saylor told WTOP. The push that were pursing right now is to get people engaged in doing their stories.
If you would like to tell your COVID-19 pandemic story, go to the StoryCorps website.
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2024 WTOP. All Rights Reserved. This website is not intended for users located within the European Economic Area.
When an outbreak occurs, it tends to spread quickly and efficiently. We saw it happen with COVID-19. Thats due in large part to the way viruses grow and shed themselves, spreading among individuals who are in close proximity to one another.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, we learned a lot about the importance of social distancing, staying at home when sick and limiting exposure to other people when we think we may have come into contact with an illness.
But even now, COVID-19 remains dangerous for many, especially our most vulnerable populations. And the concept of superspreader events gatherings of people where even just a single infection spurs a large outbreak among attendees is not just a thing of the pandemic past. Its a harsh reality that still requires caution.
Weddings, funerals and even large family parties (like birthdays or holiday dinners) are just a few examples of regular events that can turn into superspreaders if those in attendance arent careful.
The more people there are, the higher the risk becomes for infection especially if someone in attendance has knowingly experienced symptoms and/or been exposed to a virus before the event.
Originally, we were worried about superspreader events when not a lot of people were infected at the start of the pandemic, says infectious disease doctor Donald Dumford, MD.
During those times, superspreader events were leading to a really big ramp-up in the pandemic. At this point, superspreader events can still lead to a lot of infections, but now, the risk for infection at any public event has become more commonplace.
Dr. Dumford discusses superspreader events, why theyre still so prime for infection, and what you can do to protect yourself when you inevitably attend one (lest the FOMO set in).
One of the confounding things about superspreader events is that they dont have exact criteria. Its entirely possible to have a large gathering of people where very few people (or even none) contract a virus, while a family gathering of just a dozen people could spread a virus to everyone.
When you see a large event where theres a greater amount of transmission than would be expected, that qualifies as a superspreader, clarifies Dr. Dumford.
He points tothe new standardwhere an infected person at a gathering can be expected to infect two to three people (an average of 2.5), with an infection rate of about 20% among family members, from an infectious person.
When you see an event where that rate is higher, thats usually what youd consider a superspreader event, he continues. As an example, he notes the now well-knownstudy from Washington Statethat focused on a 61-person choir practice in which a single infected member caused 32 confirmed infections and 20 additional probable cases among the other members.
Normally, Dr. Dumford says, you would expect two or three people, the closest to the infected individual, to get sick from that interaction. Instead, it was at least three times that, possibly five times.
And weve seen superspreader events before with other viruses like the severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) outbreak in Beijing in 2003 or the West Africa Ebola outbreak in 20142015. In both situations, there were more resulting infections as the number of close contacts increased.
Further research into the transmission of COVID-19 shows the most severe superspreader-dominant outbreaks are even more severe and faster spread than the most severe non-superspreader-dominated outbreaks.
Although, on average, COVID-19 cases are less severe than at the beginning of the pandemic, they do still cause considerable morbidity and can still lead to death in our more vulnerable populations, so superspreader events via gatherings can still be detrimental especially if you or a loved one are elderly or immunocompromised, explains Dr. Dumford.
If you are in this group, then wearing a mask at public events is a good way to reduce the risk.
It all comes down to how the virus spreads. COVID-19 is predominantly transmitted by close contact droplets, Dr. Dumford reminds us. Its going to be spread by that person youre sitting with at a table who youre talking with for an extended period of time.
Take that choir practice mentioned. Over the course of two-and-a-half hours, the infected, asymptomatic person was continually projecting virus-laden droplets into the air. And given the close quarters and indoor nature of the practice, there was plenty of opportunity for those droplets to circulate and infect dozens of others in the room, not just those in the immediate vicinity. When we speak, cough or sing, we can propel virus-infected droplets around six feet (even more if you sneeze).
But Dr. Dumford points out that superspreader events may occur when much smaller virus-laden droplets are able to float in the air longer, spreadingover a longer distance and becoming easier to inhale. This is why crowded, indoor gatherings are probably the most likely to become superspreader events.
Superspreader events are dependent on several factors, including the environment where the event takes place, how contagious people are and the kind of variant theyve been exposed to.
Superspreaders that come from family events often catch those infected off-guard because they believe their family to be something of a safe bubble. A close group of people theyre around often and people whove disclosed their COVID-19 vaccination status seem unlikely to cause an outbreak on the surface. But as Dr. Dumford notes, many dont quite fully comprehend the fullest, strictest bubble concept.
There are definitely big family gatherings, like a birthday party or a wedding, that can be a good example of a superspreader, he illustrates. They may be your family, but often, you dont all live under the same roof. Theres still a risk because you dont know if any one of the attendees hasnt recently exposed themselves to other people whove had COVID-19, whether theyve been hanging out with friends or traveling abroad.
With that in mind, social gatherings and public outings have higher potential to become superspreader events if they:
Superspreader events can occur at home or in public places, including:
The worst-case scenarios are events where a large number of people are clustered together, talkingor singing or some other sort of increased activity, especially in a poorly ventilated setting, emphasizes Dr. Dumford.
Outdoor gatherings are safer than indoor gatherings. And indoor gatherings with the windows open and an airflow going through are better than not. But you can still get infected even at those events if the right variables are in play.
No matter the setting, theres still an inherent risk. The best solution to any potential infection is to make sure youre up-to-date on your COVID-19 vaccines.
The recent COVID-19 booster vaccines have been tailored to the virus strains that were circulating most this past fall, explains Dr. Dumford. The clear benefit to the vaccine is those who have been vaccinated are less likely to get severe illness from the virus and have a reduced likelihood of transmitting the virus to others. Additionally, recent data also shows that those that are vaccinated are less likely to develop long COVID.
Masks and social distancing will also cut your risk for infections way down, especially in outdoor settings, but theresalwaysa risk in crowds.
We do our best to stay safe, but the more people youre close to, youre in contact with, the higher the risk goes even if youre doing everything possible, says Dr. Dumford.
Of course, if youre hosting the event, as an extra precaution you can always ask your guests to test for COVID-19 or inquire about their vaccination status before they attend. Even as a guest, youre well within your right to inquire about where other attendees stand on the matter. Its now become so commonplace to have these conversations before getting together for any big celebration, its almost expected in many social circles.
Lets say, despite every potential risk, you decide to attend an event. Or maybe you go to a gathering expecting it to be small but it turns out to be quite big. What should you do afterward, especially if you find out someone else at the gathering tested positive for COVID-19?
According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), if you think youve been exposed to the virus andyouve been vaccinated for COVID-19, you should wear a mask when youre around other people and test on day five.
If you think youve been exposed to the virus andyoure unvaccinated or arent yet caught up on the most recent vaccine for COVID-19, you should stay home for five days and test on day five.
If youve been vaccinated for COVID-19 and you test positive or develop symptoms, you should stay home for five days (or until your symptoms are gone) and wear a mask for five days after.
If youre not vaccinated or not up-to-date with the latest COVID-19 vaccine and you test positive, its recommended to avoid being around other people until you no longer have symptoms or until youve hit five days and then, wear a mask for another five days.
I would be sure to wear a mask even when youre inside your own home and around family members that you wouldnt normally mask-up for, just to reduce the likelihood of transmission, advises Dr. Dumford. You need to avoid exposingothers, especially those that might have compromised immune systems.
Soothe your aches and pains, stay hydrated and contact a healthcare provider if you experience shortness of breath or chest pain, have trouble eating, have a consistent fever or are concerned about any of the symptoms you experience. There are a number of COVID-19 treatment options available that can help when COVID-19 hits home, despite your best efforts.
All individuals 6 months of age and older who reside in the United States are eligible to receive the updated COVID-19 vaccine.
COVID vaccines are widely available at pharmacies, local health departments, clinics, Federally Qualified Health Centers and other locations across the state.
Find a Vaccine Appointment
Gujarat Health Minister Rushikesh Patel Monday ruled out any relation between Covid-19 vaccine and deaths caused by heart attacks. This notion is totally baseless. Nearly 250 crore doses of COVID-19 vaccines were administered across the country. Heart attacks are not caused because of any side-effects of the vaccine. There is no relation between deaths due to heart attacks and the coronavirus vaccine, he said in response to a question by Congress MLA Imran Khedawala during Question Hour of the ongoing Budget session of the Assembly in Gandhinagar.
It is possible people may have got infected with fibrosis (a serious lung disease) due to Covid-19, which might decrease the capacity of lungs due to blockages. Otherwise, there is no relation between heart attacks and the coronavirus vaccine, Patel told the House.
Further, he added that as on February 4, there were 68 active Covid-19 cases in the state. The figures were revealed as the state government has stopped updating its Covid-19 figures on an online portal.
The minister stated that 80 patients, detected with the JN.1 sub-variant, have been treated so far till date. However, he added that JN.1 is a very weak sub-variant.
Meanwhile, AAP MLA Hemant Ahir asked the health minister under what rule was it decided to convert the Community Health Centre (CHC) at Dhrol in Jamnagar to a sub-district hospital (SDH) when it is only 45 kms from the district headquarters. His constituency of Jamjodhpur is around 95 kms away from the district headquarters and yet, the CHC there has not been upgraded as an SDH, he said. Emphasising that when it comes to health and education, without being partisan, without thinking of AAP or Congress, works are done across Gujarat, Patel said that an SDH is under consideration in Jamjodhpur.
Patel went on to add that both Dhrol and Jamjodhpur are in Gujarat and the upgradation of Dhrol CHC to a SDH is being done as per parameters and policy considered for such upgradation of health centres.
Meanwhile, in response to a question by Patan Congress MLA Kiritkumar Patel, inquiring about pending dues to be paid to hospitals in Patan under the PMJAY scheme, the data tabled shows that dues worth Rs 16.47 crore are pending to be cleared across 79 health facilities, including PHCs, CHCs, government and private hospitals, as on date.
Of the Rs 16.47 crore of pending dues, Rs 3.90 crore have been pending since six months, including CHCs in Sander and Varahi in Patan, and government-aided GMERS Hospital in Patan, along with 14 other health facilities. Dues worth Rs 42.78 lakh have been pending since a year, including at CHCs at Kakoshi and Kuvara in the district.
Ayurveda syrup deaths
Khedawala also quizzed about the action taken after four people died in November last year by allegedly consuming an ayurvedic syrup. In response, the Gujarat health ministry tabled a report stating that eight persons were arrested in the case and chargesheet has been filed.
All the arrested are currently in judicial custody. Additionally, the syrup was seized from 12 spots across the state, according to the department, that include three paan parlours at Mehmedabad, two paan parlours and a hotel in Vadtal in Kheda, and a shop in Nadiad town.
Newborns whose mothers received at least one mRNA COVID-19 vaccine during pregnancy had no worse outcomes than those whose mothers didn't get the vaccine during pregnancy, a large cohort study from Sweden and Norway found.
In fact, the unadjusted mortality rates for vaccine-exposed neonates in the two nations were about half of those for unexposed neonates, a difference that held up after adjustment for a variety of factors (adjusted odds ratio [aOR] 0.68, 95% CI 0.50-0.91), Mikael Norman, MD, PhD, from the Karolinska Institutet in Stockholm, and colleagues reported in JAMA.
Researchers found that neonates exposed to a maternal COVID-19 vaccine had lower odds for nontraumatic intracranial hemorrhage (aOR 0.78, 95% CI 0.61-0.99), and there was also a lower odds of hypoxic-ischemic encephalopathy with maternal vaccination in the second trimester (aOR 0.73, 95% CI 0.55-0.96).
Researchers adjusted for factors that included maternal age, BMI, education, country of birth, smoking status, season of conception, parity, multiple births, and gestational age. The findings were unaltered even after restricting the analyses to women without COVID-19 in pregnancy, infants born at term, infants without birth defects, and singleton births, Norman explained.
"We did not expect the lower risk for neonatal death to be so robust," Norman told MedPage Today.
Notably, there were no cases of neonatal pericarditis, myocarditis, or other inflammatory neonatal diseases among infants after maternal vaccination during pregnancy, the authors pointed out.
"The study and the results are of great importance for healthcare professionals offering counseling, authorities issuing recommendations, and above all, for anyone who will become pregnant in the future," Norman said. "It is therefore very important for all women who become pregnant to know that vaccination with mRNA vaccines against COVID-19 is safe for their babies."
The current study provided more evidence that maternal mRNA COVID-19 vaccines are safe for newborns, Elizabeth Schlaudecker, MD, medical director of the division of infectious diseases at Cincinnati Children's Hospital, commented to MedPage Today. "There was a period when we didn't really know 100% how [mRNA vaccines] would affect pregnant women," she said, because when the mRNA COVID-19 vaccines were being developed, trials excluded pregnant people. "We were recommending it [to pregnant people] but still gathering data at the time, which is not our favorite situation to be in."
The study's findings made sense, noted Schlaudecker, who is an investigator for the CDC's Clinical Immunization Safety Assessment project. "We think that the mechanism of some of these injuries to infants when they're in utero is because Mom had an insult, like an infection," she explained. "We know, for example, that if a mom has influenza while she's pregnant, it leads to prematurity, low birth weight, and several other negative outcomes."
Schlaudecker was also impressed with the capabilities of Sweden and Norway to collect comprehensive vaccine data on all mothers and infants born in those countries. She noted that the U.S. failed to consistently track vaccination data over the course of the pandemic, making it difficult to study maternal vaccine outcomes in the U.S.
The population-based cohort study looked at data from all live births at 22 weeks or more of gestational age in Sweden and Norway between June 2021 and January 2023. Of the 196,470 newborn infants, 48% were exposed to at least one COVID-19 vaccination with an mRNA vaccine during pregnancy, with most being exposed to one or two vaccinations. Over half of neonates were male (51.3%) and most were born at term (93.8%). Of those exposed to a COVID-19 vaccine, about 80% were exposed to the Pfizer-BioNTech BNT162b2 (Comirnaty) vaccine and about 20% to the Moderna mRNA-1273 (Spikevax) vaccine. Overall, 32% of the infants were exposed during the first trimester, 43% during the second trimester, and 24% during the third trimester.
People vaccinated during pregnancy in both Sweden and Norway were older, of Nordic origin, had more education, more often nulliparous, and had more comorbidities than pregnant people who did not get vaccinated (P<0.001). Vaccine-exposed infants were less likely than infants with no exposure to the COVID-19 vaccine to be preterm, small for gestational age, or have decreased Apgar scores.
Researchers looked at a variety of possible negative outcomes among newborns including bleeding/thrombosis, inflammation/infection, central nervous system disorders, circulatory problems, problems with respiration, gastrointestinal problems, and neonatal mortality. They also examined a wide variety of covariates that may have influenced outcomes. All data were prospectively collected from national registers in Sweden and Norway.
Katherine Kahn is a staff writer at MedPage Today, covering the infectious diseases beat. She has been a medical writer for over 15 years.
Disclosures
The study was supported by grants from Region Stockholm and Karolinska Institutet, the Childhood Foundation of the Swedish Order of Freemasons, NordForsk, and the Norwegian Research Council.
Norman reported no conflicts of interest. A co-author reported receiving grants from Research Council of Norway, NordForsk, and European Research Council when the study was conducted.
Schlaudecker reported no conflicts of interest related to the study.
Primary Source
JAMA
Source Reference: Norman M, et al "Neonatal outcomes after COVID-19 vaccination in pregnancy" JAMA 2024; DOI: 10.1001/jama.2023.26945.
By James Gamble via SWNS
Newborn babies whose mothers are vaccinated against COVID-19 are less likely to die or suffer complications, according to new research.
The study involving almost 200,000 Scandinavian moms found that babies whose mothers were vaccinated fared better than those whose mothers were not.
The study, published in the journal JAMA, serves as proof that vaccines are not only safe for pregnant women but could even potentially offer some health benefits to their babies.
The results showed babies born by women who chose to be vaccinated were less likely to suffer serious complications - including death.
However, the research team admitted they couldn't explain the benefits to the babies of vaccinated mothers and said it's 'unlikely' to be a direct result of vaccination.
The study used national registers in Norway and Sweden to observe 196,470 newborns across the two nations - accounting for nearly all newborn babies of women who became pregnant after the vaccines became available.
The first baby was born in June 2021 and the last in January 2023.
(Photo by MART PRODUCTION via Pexels)
All babies were followed up for at least one month or as long as they were admitted to a neonatal unit.
Nearly half (48 percent) of the mothers had been vaccinated with one or more doses of a vaccine against COVID-19.
The majority (80 percent) received the Pfizer/BioNtech vaccine whilst a fifth (20 percent) received the Moderna vaccine.
In addition to lower infant mortality, the researchers also found a lower risk of two other serious complications in infants born to mothers who had been vaccinated.
Looking at a total of 15 neonatal complications after birth, the researchers found there was a rate of 0.9 infant deaths per 1,000 births in vaccinated mothers, whereas this rate was 1.8 per 100,000 in unvaccinated mothers.
Babies who suffered bleeds to the brain were also more prevalent in unvaccinated mothers at 3.2 per 1,000 compared with 1.7 per 1,000 in vaccinated mothers.
Those who suffered brain hypoxia/ischemia - a type of brain damage caused by a lack of oxygen to the brain before or shortly after birth - were also more likely to come from unvaccinated mothers (2.7 in 1,000 births vs 1.8 in 1,000 births of vaccinated mothers).
Mikael Norman, a professor of pediatrics and neonatology at the Department of Clinical Science, Intervention and Technology at the Karolinska Institutet in Sweden and first author of the study, explained that there was no explanation as to why babies from vaccinated mothers fared better than those from unvaccinated mothers.
(Photo by RF._.studio via Pexels)
"We made several attempts to explain this finding," Dr Norman explained. "A direct vaccine effect is unlikely.
"Previous studies have shown that the vaccine does not cross the placenta and that it cannot be found in umbilical cord blood."
The researchers instead adjusted for several background factors that were unevenly distributed in the two groups of women and conducted seven different subgroup analyses of women and newborns.
No matter how we look at it, the finding remains and, therefore, we cannot say what the lower risk of death among infants of vaccinated women relates to," Dr Norman said.
"We saw lower rates of cerebral hemorrhages and hypoxia-ischemic conditions of the brain in the newborns of vaccinated than in babies of unvaccinated in pregnancy.
"The incidence of other bleedings, blood clots or inflammation in various organ systems did not differ between the groups."
Although the pandemic is over, Dr. Norman emphasized that the results of the study are of great importance for healthcare professionals offering counseling, authorities issuing recommendations and, above all, for anyone who will become pregnant in the future.
"COVID-19 is still present in society and is probably something we will have to deal with for a long time," he said.
"It is therefore very important for the one hundred thousand women who become pregnant every year in Sweden, and the 130 million in the world, to know that vaccination with mRNA-vaccines against COVID-19 is safe for their babies.
"We found no increased risks. If anything, infants to vaccinated women had lower risks for some severe outcomes."
