COVID-19: For the second time in Israel, a stillborn baby has corona

A woman in her 36th week of pregnancy was born to a dead baby at Meir Hospital in Kfar Saba on Friday.

She went to the hospital after she stopped feeling fetal movements. Laboratory tests performed after the birth of the baby showed that he was infected with the new coronavirus.

The hospital said it suspects there is a link between the baby’s death and the virus.

This is the second case in Israel and one of only a few worldwide fetuses to contract the virus in the womb.

A similar case occurred at Samson Assuta Ashdod University Hospital earlier this month when a woman 25 weeks pregnant gave birth to a stillborn baby. That child also got the virus from his mother.

Prof. Arnon Wiznitzer, an obstetrician and gynecologist at the Rabin Medical Center-Beilinson campus in Petah Tikva, tells The Jerusalem Post that fetuses that contract the virus through the placenta, called vertical transmission, are very uncommon. In only between 1% and 3% of cases, a pregnant mother transmitted the virus directly to her baby. However, he said this is an argument for pregnant women who are vaccinated in any trimester.

As of Saturday morning, the Ministry of Health showed that 39 pregnant women or new mothers had been admitted to hospital, 10 of whom were in a critical condition, eight of whom were intubating, including two connected to an extracorporeal membrane oxygenation (ECMO) machine wash.

An ECMO machine is a heart-lung machine that removes carbon dioxide from a patient’s blood and returns oxygen-rich.

There are 25 children under the age of 18 in the hospital, most of whom had underlying medical conditions before contracting COVID-19.

Five of them were newborns. Three children were in a serious or critical condition.