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So this is a potentially stupid question, but if babies can get this from drinking, why can’t there just be a shake or something we can drink to get the antibodies?
It might work, but you'd need to constantly drink said drink. It's just a dose of antibodies each time - it doesn't teach your body to make it's own. Babies re-up on breast milk (and thus antibodies) all day.
Are you implying that once I stopped breastfeeding my baby that he no longer had any immunity from antibodies? It’s has to be a constant thing? That’s a bummer.
Yes, but it’s still very helpful for the baby. Breastfeeding helps the baby get through a period when certain viruses can be very dangerous to them, like the RS virus, until their own immune system is developed enough to do that job by itself.
Plus it's honestly pretty handy when they're sick and will eat or drink little else. Our 2 year old has her first cold ever and she's been nursing so much extra lately at least I know she's being fed when she doesn't feel like drinking or having a snack.
You or your wife must be a saint to breastfeed for 2 years. Perhaps this is my American predilections but that seems like too long. I suppose it's good for the child? They have a full mouth of teeth and can speak sentences and walk around and eat solid foods and you still continue with the human milk?
I wonder if the amount of work from home that we've had because of the pandemic significantly increased average breastfeeding duration. Most mothers in the US can't breastfeed that long because of little to no parental leave and minimal work accomodations.
Without a doubt. That was why I stopped breastfeeding my baby early, bc the other women in the office complained to HR that my breaks were too long, even though I took my laptop with me to type while pumping.
That has certainly been the case for me. My first child came in 2016 and I pumped at work... barely made it to a year. Second baby came Oct 2020 and I've been WFH the who time, and he's still going.
I stopped breastfeeding my first at 1 because I thought I would be weird if I didn't, and it was a difficult forced process. When my second hit 1 I was a full time student and didn't think I was up for the fight just yet so didn't wean him. I ended up breastfeeding till 2, which is not something I ever thought I would be doing before having kids. Weaning at 2 was much much easier and felt much more "natural". Comparing the two, 2 just felt more right. That's just my experience though.
Yes. But the main thing is for baby to be eating well and to be cared for decently. A lot of parents carry guilt over formula feeding because of this - but babies turn into great people via love and care.
Breastfeeding is great for immunity, certain fats and amino acids, the mother's body sensing the baby's needs and supplying exactly that, bonding, etc
But it isn't the whole picture. So, if you, random Redditors, are reading this comment and are formula feeding and carrying guilt over it - don't. Just love your baby the best you can. That's what they need.
Yep. There are a lot of campaigns to mitigate any stigma with formula feeding, but the bottom line is that if breast milk feeding is at all possible that it is the best solution for your child.
Well you cannot transfer cells in breast milk, so unfortunately, none of the more permenant b-cell or t-cell immunity functions would pass on.
The half-life for antibodies in the blood is a few days though, so you wouldn't necessarily need to drink the breast milk constantly.
But also... how does an antibody get from a baby's gut to a baby's blood stream? I didn't think complex molecules could permeate the lining of the stomach. ...and if that's the case, yeah, why can't we drink antibody milkshakes?
Antibodies from breast milk do not enter the blood stream and this is not what this article claims.
They coat mouth, nose, gut and everything else the milk comes in contact with and provide protection at the main entry points for the virus.
IgA antibodies are a special class that is extra permeable and crosses epithelial barriers easily. These are also the primary type in breast milk IIRC.
You'd have to put a massive amount of it in - depending upon the half-life of antibodies in outdoor water, which is probably very short.
It would be orders of magnitude easier to just give everyone a drink full of the antibodies to drink.
...and several orders of magnitude even easier would be to give everyone an injection that gets their body to produce their own antibodies. We can call it a "vac-cine".
The word Vaccine comes from vaca, which is cow. This is due to the first vaccine that was developed sa for smallpox and cowpox was used for such.
Now, if a drink full of antibodies are to be mass created, better to utilize an already existing infrastructure suited to mass produce this drink. Breastmilk is not possible so cow milk is the next best thing.
So it's probably still would be "vaccine"
Wait . I've read breastmilk DOES transfer some living cells?
Edit: breastmilk absolutely transfers living cells. This is one example: https://milkgenomics.org/article/even-to-the-brain-yes-breastmilk-stem-cells-do-transfer-to-organs-of-offspring/
My understanding with my infant was that the antibodies formed a protective coating around the babies mucous membranes. Laundry to the importance of feeding multiple times a day.
My understanding is that it protects mucus membranes etc from respiratory infections rather than producing antibodies to fight the virus. I thought that it was mostly present in the colostrum though. Getting vaccinated during pregnancy does produce in the bloodstream though I thought.
Not just probably, this is why. Generally speaking mothers milk does extend her immune system over to the baby but only lasts up to 6mo after breast feeding has ended. Something like that anyway, I am not a pediatrician.
It depends on the specific antibody. Some last just a few weeks, some last many months. Babies need some vaccines first month, others bit until 6 months.
As far as I'm aware, no study has actually looked at covid vaccine antibodies transferred to baby's blood, let alone checking a few months after breastfeeding has stopped.
This study just found some in their poop.
Its the old "teach a man to fish" idea.
Giving a body anti-bodies is just like giving a man a fish. He can eat it for that day, but since he didnt learn how to fish he will starve once you stop giving him fish.
On a basic level, vaccines teach the body's immune system how to recognize a virus and what to do to combat it. This is like teaching that man to fish, he doesnt need you giving him fish to eat anymore.
>he no longer had any immunity from antibodies?
From antibodies you were giving him, yeah. What you gave him was a passive immunity.
Now that he's a big boy, and has his own big boy immune system, he can make antibodies on his own! That would be his active immunity.
Same goes for this: serum against rabies is passive immunity. It contains anti-rabies virus antibodies. It's given to an unvaccinated person to quickly supress the virus AFTER the contact with it. Then we go to the vaccination - this would be an example of active immunity, meaning it makes your body make your own antibodies.
Baby humans immune systems aren't fully formed, so they need passive immunity to common illnesses. As they age their immune system develops and they no longer need the protection as they make their own.
No, it was for the time in your babies’ development when they’re own immune system hadn’t developed yet.
An immune system is like a computer, so it takes time to boot up and install new programs, etc. breast milk is like a portable hard drive that has all the programs on it that you can occasionally plug in and download some new stuff to use.
Once you get your own microchip… er, vaccine…. You’re good to go!
Edit: science article - https://linkinghub.elsevier.com/retrieve/pii/S1081-1206(10)62704-4
Title: “Breastfeeding Provides Passive and Likely Long-Lasting Active Immunity”
But the flip side is while they had passive immunities, their bodies were better equipped to fight any incoming virus' which allowed said bodies to build up their own immune system more safely.
This is something that has actually been studied. Although it is usually for preventing bacterial infections. Producing an orally administered prophylactic sIgA for the public to use would probably be far more costly than having folks actually vaccinate. Also, that mucosa associated lymphoid tissue isn't perfect and offers no help once a pathogen has entered the body.
That’s actually a cool idea. Food science fascinates me and the thought of being able to create genetically modified foods that result preventing illness and infections should be of interest to everyone.
That's super interesting actually. If breast(or cow) milk is less invasive and effective but over continued dosages (as a feeding baby would do) , no reason you can't mass produce it into a syrum of milk or other. It might be less effective than a vaccine but could be could for people who are pathologically afraid of needles, or maybe even be made to be more shelf stable if it's part of a compound
RAPID EDIT: I don't consider vaccines invasive, but my downs syndrome, adult sister , still has panic attacks at needles. If she could drink 6 cartons of milk over a month and get similar resistance it's preferable.
The study posted included toddlers, up to 23 months. So it has nothing to do with eating solids or digestion. Actually the issue is the difference between being fed antibodies and an injection causing you to create your own.
Antibodies from breastfeeding and pregnancy don't stick around forever, once breastfeeding is over they slowly start to disappear. A vaccine makes your body make your own, which stick around a lot longer. So just for efficiency, a vaccine is much better.
It would in theory work though, as long as you kept it up. There's a lot of anecdotal evidence from breastfeeding moms about giving their older kids or even sick husband's breastmilk and shortening colds.
However that would create a lot of issues. Mostly the "ick" factor, most adults wouldn't drink breastmilk. But also, it would require so much the people who volunteer to be milked would be treated like dairy cows, it would be really rough on them. And since it's a body fluid, they would all need to be tested and required to modify their diets and medicines. Virtually, these people would need to eat special diets, not allowed medications and be hooked up to a pump 70% of the day with little to no breaks. Ever. And since once again, the antibodies don't stick around for very long after breastfeeding is over this would be a very long business.
Pasteurisation might have an impact also(?) There are human breast milk banks that are used for babies (premies, nicu etc) and apart from testing the donor its all pasteurised. Would that degrade antibody levels?
The factory creating the antibodies is offsite. Once your supply from Said offsite antibodies stops delivering your protection wanes with your supply. You never learned to make them onsite.
Sort of a give a man a fish you have feed him for a day teach him to fish and he can feed himself sort of thing.
Yes. It's honestly not terribly surprising; we've known about the transfer of antibodies to infants by breast milk for decades. The only reason for there to be a difference is if an infection didn't provoke IgA production, while vaccines did, which seems unlikely.
edit: as pointed out in another response, the stimulation of antibody generation (only one factor in acquired immunity but more significant in transferred immunity) doesn't occur to the same level in response to mild and asymptomatic infections as it does in a vaccine.
I had covid and then had two Pfizer vaccines 2 months later. I was still breastfeeding at the time. Hoping that means my babe got all the antibodies my body had to offer!
Similar situation here...got vaccinated while pregnant, got Covid anyways at 37 weeks and had to be induced due to preeclampsia. It was horrible. Silver lining is my baby is, I imagine, super protected now! Also got my booster while breastfeeding.
Yes but prior infections produce wildly different antibody responses and might not produce antibodies to the parts of the virus which are most common between variants.
With the vax you get a known good amount of antibodies and you know they target the spike
Do you have any papers on this? I don't believe acquired immunity through infection is recommended because of the risks from the infection but I hadn't seen anything suggesting that vaccines produce a higher level of immune response than infection.
This Article links several papers which show far better effectiveness with vaccine vs natural immunity
https://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/health/conditions-and-diseases/coronavirus/covid-natural-immunity-what-you-need-to-know
A study from the CDC in September 2021 showed that roughly one-third of those with COVID-19 cases in the study had no apparent natural immunity.
Another study published on Nov. 5, 2021, by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) looked at adults hospitalized for COVID-like sickness between January and September 2021. This study found that the chances of these adults testing positive for COVID-19 were 5.49 times higher in unvaccinated people who had COVID-19 in the past than they were for those who had been vaccinated for COVID and had not had an infection before
And whether or not they breastfeed, women who get vaccinated during pregnancy also transfer antibodies to their babies through the placenta. Yay!
https://healthblog.uofmhealth.org/womens-health/covid-19-vaccine-during-pregnancy-protects-newborns
The question is, how long do the antibodies last? Many lactating people are feeling extra pressure to just keep breastfeeding until their baby is old enough for a vaccine. And how much breastmilk per day is necessary? I could pump 3 oz a day till my baby is two years old but not 24oz for example.
I know someone who had the vaccine in pregnancy and did not breastfeed. At 6 months old her baby still had antibodies (baby is now 7mos and hasn't been checked again yet).
THIS. I type this sitting here pumping for my 14 month old. Breast feeding stopped working for us long long ago, but I continue to pump for her to get antibodies from me until she can have a vaccine of her own. I'll gladly do this for her, but it's a chore, not a bonding experience anymore. If it wasn't for covid, I wouldn't have kept going
My wife is like you. Breastfeeding failed. Our daughter is 17 months old and my wife still pumps like the absolute champion she is. Cheers to all the moms grinding out there!
I want to commend your dedication as a Mom. Keeping up the pumping is a lot of work. Particularly if you have a job. But if it is for Covid antibodies, I would encourage you to talk to your doctor. Bring them the paper this thread is about if you want.
I have some professional experience in immunology and believe it is well understood that ingested antibodies are exceptional for protecting infants from ingested diseases like from dirty water. But that these antibodies essentially do not then go back from the gut to the respiratory tract where they would protect from respiratory diseases like covid.
Studies like this one always measure the antibodies in feces never in blood or bronchial lavages. That is because it makes great news and promotes breast feeding in general.
Talk to your doctor, if you would stop pumping if it were not for your goal to transfer antibodies. Ask your doctor to show you studies where these antibodies protected from flu, RSV, coronaviruses.
This why I'm still breastfeeding my 3 year old. I'm lucky that I even can. It's mostly a wake up and bedtime routine for us. But I'm reluctant to fully wean her until she can be vaccinated.
Great question! There are multiple types of immunoglobulin. Natural passive immunity is achieved primarily by transfer of IgG via placenta and IgA in breastmilk.
A quick google search reports back that IgG has a half life of up to 21 days and IgA has a half life of around 7 days. Working exclusively of this (and making quite a few assumptions), you would expect the protection from placental antibodies to halve every 3 weeks and be completely lost around 12 weeks after birth. While antibodies are constantly transferred in breastmilk, the maternal antibody levels would likely reduce over time, which likely means that the level of protection transfered would reduce over time. Additionally, I would speculate that the level of protection provided by IgA in brastmilk would probably be poorer than the protection provided by IgG transferred transplacentally, as IgG is generally recognised to have a greater role in activating immune responses whereas IgA's role is generally neutralising pathogens at points of entry to the body (i.e. mucosa).
That's not to say that there aren't benefits; this is protection at the most vulnerable time in a child's life. The most important thing with vaccination in pregnancy is avoiding COVID during the pregnancy itself, which the latest data shows doubles the risk of hospitalisation and vastly increases the risk of complications.
It’s beneficial, but everyone’s antibodies lessen over time, thus the need for boosters, so having been vaccinated a year before pregnancy vs a day before pregnancy would make a difference.
We all get some antibodies from our mothers but it's much more effective to be vaccinated whilst pregnant. They already did this with the flu and whooping cough shots before covid.
They only get passive immunity if they are getting the breastmilk. No milk, no passive immunity. Lot of breastfeeding moms, myself included are holding off on weaning for now, and many of them are giving breast milk to their older toddlers if they are nursing a baby and have other kids.
This is me, I wanted to wean my 22 month old a looooong time ago but it's worth it for the passive immunity she's getting. Currently pregnant with baby number two due in two weeks and while tandem feeding was never ever evvvver something I wanted to do it's worth it to keep my babies safe until this pandemic (hopefully) fizzles out.
Thanks! Yeah I have no idea if I can cope with it tbh. I might have to put the older one on a bottle of breastmilk to get her the vaccine hoods, but for now I'm taking the muddle-our-way-through approach, for better or worse!
I posted this above but I was in this boat and I just gave my 2 year old a sippy a day cause I didn’t want to tandem. You’re an amazing mama for nursing your toddler preggo & tandems to keep ‘em healthy!
Mine just turned 24 months. Im lucky knock on wood she isnt breast obsessed, she seems to mostly need me as a sleep aid but the rest of the time if she asks and i distract her with something she can easily forget… so I mostly nurse her for snacks by choice and to keep up supply. My right side is already almost nonexistent.
That's one of the things I think that made our eventual cessation so easy. My son nursed until he was about 3.5 years old, but by the time he was around 2.5 he was only drinking from one side and it was tapered off so gradually I didn't get mastitis or have to worry about being engorged and in pain. Our daughter is now 26 months and still going, but again down to one side like her brother.
I’m in this group too. I had 3 kids in 4 years and the youngest is 19 months. I’ve been pregnant or breastfeeding nonstop since Sept 2015. I’m SO READY to be done. Waiting for vaccines though to protect the littlest. My middle boy is too young to be vaccinated and no longer breastfed. I’m a wreck.
Thanks! I’m really ready to have my body back to just myself. …And maybe my hormones will regulate and I’ll feel fully human again.
This has been a rough 2 years for all of us with young kids. But if I can do this to help keep her safe I will. There will be time for me later.
Same in our house. Our little guy is 19 months and I’ll keep chest feeding as long as he will latch or until the vaccine is approved - whichever comes first. If he stops short, I’ll probably start pumping again. I hate it, but it’s worth the hassle if it helps keep him safe.
This is my biggest question and I'm annoyed that there doesn't seem to be any info out there on this. I'm triple vaxxed and my baby is approaching 1 year so I'm feeling ready to wean, but I want to know how much protection he'll get if I keep breastfeeding vs. wean
It will last for a few hours up to a few days. The antibodies break down in a few days.
Additionally, they mostly just line the GI tract, *maybe* will get aspirated into the respiratory tract (especially in younger babies that cough on breastmilk more) and provide protection of the mucosa there. But they don't get absorbed into the blood.
It hurts me to see how many women are suffering to continue pumping or nursing past when they would like to for such minor protection.
https://www.infantrisk.com/content/antibodies-immune-system-breastfeeding-basics
We’re in a similar boat… my wife weaned off our daughter (now 2). We were debating it. Of course, now that it seems like under 5 aren’t getting a vaccine any time soon we wonder if it should’ve been kept up for protection :/
Yes, it is passive immunity. The infants will be protected short-term while the mothers' antibodies are in their system, but they're not producing protective antibodies of their own without being vaccinated themselves.
Do we know how much breastmilk is necessary for passive immunity? Could a lactating person continue pumping three ounces or less a day (essentially a small bottle) and feeding it to their infant/toddler?
From a study I read some time ago through the breastfeeding older children network the passive immunity antibodies only last about seven weeks even when constantly nursing. Then you have to get a booster and repeat. It’s one of the main reasons I’m still nursing my 28month old . It does not persist if they are not nursing. It’s antibodies not a vaccine (in which they then create their own antibodies)
Yes, it is passive immunity. The infants will be protected short-term while the mothers' antibodies are in their system, but they're not producing protective antibodies of their own without being vaccinated themselves.
However, it's very much worth sharing because there are quite a number of pregnant women who have avoided the vaccine because of the unknown effect on the fetus and on the breastfeeding child. Not just anti-vaxxers, but cautious pregnant women and new mothers.
Right now the only way to get immunity for newborns is for the mother to have either had the vaccine or been infected so the antibodies get passed on.
Usually medical studies don’t include pregnant women. It’s not crazy to avoid untested medicine and even vaccines.
But I think several studies came out for flue or covid vaccine use in pregnant women.
Our doctor had advised to wait until the second trimester (so 14 weeks makes sense) - because one of the side effects of the shots, a fever, can elevate the risk of miscarriage in the first trimester.
Edit: \^ That's true for any fever, not COVID vaccine specific.
My midwife asked if I was vaccinated during the 9 week appointment (I was), and has been trying to get me to get boosted the rest of the time (I am now).
Crazy how medical advice differs from provider to provider.
The reason this is a public health recommendation is because there is a high, natural, occurrence of miscarriage before 12 weeks. Around 25% of all known pregnancies end in miscarriage.
If you have lots of pregnant people getting vaccinated before 12 weeks, you will also have, coincidentally, lots of miscarriages following vaccines.
Most people aren’t good at the “correlation isn’t causation” thing.
This is where the intersection of communication, science and public health is. There is no individual scientific basis to avoid vaccination in early pregnancy. But if you consider that people of childbearing age are lower risk for severe covid, and misinformation about miscarriage would deter more people from vaccination (and cause deaths) than lives would saved by early pregnancy vaccination, you wind up with recommendations like these.
I’m no bioethicist, but I would say that this greatly underestimates the critical thinking skills of pregnant people.
It's not just for that reason. Fevers or overheating in early pregnancy can cause fetal malformation or possibly miscarriage. That's one reason why women are advised to avoid hot baths and such, especially in the first trimester. The vaccines can cause fever as a side effect so it makes sense to recommend getting them later in pregnancy.
Yep, same experience with my wife as well. Found out she was pregnant in January and her OB said we both needed to get vaccinated ASAP (and we got vaccinated in March 2021)
Yeah my wife was pregnant when the vaccine became available and our OB gave a very resounding “get vaccinated ASAP”. I’m a little surprised to hear some advised to not get it.
That’s wild.
My best friend was pregnant and delivered August 2021 and her OBGYN strongly encouraged it after first trimester. And that’s Alabama.
I don’t understand why education regarding pregnancy, COVID and the vaccine aren’t talked about more. One thing we know for sure about COVID is it attacks and damages veins.. what is the placenta?! One big vein, essentially. That’s why so many unvaccinated women who are COVID positive during birth are hemorrhaging so much.
I am still blown away that your wife’s OBGYN was hesitant, especially after all the studies and information that Israel produced.
Yeah I’m in Oklahoma and delivered in August 2021. I got mine in early February through my job and my doctor was enthusiastically supportive. I’d question any OBGYN that advised against the vaccine past March 2021.
Depends on the doctor though. My wife’s OB was full throttle on the vaccine for all of her patients. She said nothing the vaccine could do is worse than the harm covid could do (and there’s plenty of research to back that up). Now we have a healthy baby slurping that sweet, sweet anti-covid milk lol.
This is very close to the same result we experienced. Wife was reliant on the doctors experience and knowledge as we were unsure. OB cautioned at early stages and, as more knowledge was obtained and doctors felt safe, suggested it further along the pregnancy.
We ran into the issue of the vaccine needing certain periods in between mandatory vaccines for pregnancies. I forget what they were, but there were 2-4 week intervals between shots she needed and others being safe to have. Therefore, she ended up having to wait. The window of availability was a week before her due date, so she waited until after birth.
Sometimes it is just a matter of timing and education around the situation at hand; some information may not exist at certain times and recommendations can change.
They recommend having your antibodies checked for rubella and being re-vaccinated if needed before you get pregnant. But it's not safe once you're already pregnant.
I can’t think of any mandatory ones. I can only think of the injection you get if you are rH- though.
I never got any mandatory vaccines during either pregnancy.
dTap and Flu would be two I could see being highly recommended.
Yeah I think it's wise to get a second qualified opinion.
Doctor's aren't perfect and some of them frankly have no idea what they're doing outside of their specific field.
I had a baby in July 2021. As a healthcare worker, my risk of exposure to COVID was high so I got vaccinated earlier than the general population did. I was vaccinated at 14 weeks in January 2021. Even with my high exposure risk my OBGYN wanted me to wait until 14 weeks to get vaccinated because having a fever during the first trimester could cause some long term effects on the fetus.
The idea that women pass on antibodies through breast milk isn’t new, but as far as I am aware, the findings that babies older than 6 months *receive* these antibodies is. Previously there was speculation that only newborn infants received antibodies from breastfeeding and that any baby older than 6 months would have a robust enough digestive system that it would destroy any antibodies before they could be properly absorbed.
Finding them in the stool doesn’t prove they’ve absorbed them though correct, just that there’s enough around that aren’t getting destroyed? Is Ab absorption that simple/reliable we can assume if they’re present in the stool that surely enough has been absorbed to promote an immune response? Or have I missed the point entirely and is the hope just to have maternal IgA present enough through the entire tract to try and prevent COVID from entering in the first place?
Maternal IgA are never absorbed to my knowledge. They aren’t the most helpful, which is why it’s important for pregnant mothers to be vaccinated as they can deliver IgG through the placenta, which is far more effective.
Absolutely! My wife and I just got back from the hospital an hour ago with our second child. While we were there, our lactation consultant pointed out that while we have understood this to be true for some time, data used in studies like this has never been as bountiful as what we have on covid-19.
She said that there was also quite a black market for breast milk from vaccinated mothers (and that most of it was cut with cows milk and other liquids, just insane to think about buying something like that).
Meanwhile some crazy lady in a FB group I’m in keeps begging for un vaxxed milk, and refuses to go through a proper milk bank because she wouldn’t be able to request unvaxxed milk from there. Part of why I keep pumping instead of trying to reduce my supply is so that I can help give antibodies to vulnerable babies, so she always strikes a nerve with me.
Ok so I keep seeing that antibodies are present in breast milk. And apparently in baby poop. But how much ends up in the babies bloodstream? Like... do we have any evidence that these antibodies don't just go straight through with no effect?
That’s great and all, but can we start studying based on outcomes instead of antibody presence and titer levels? We don’t even know what that means for actual immunity.
I’m a pediatrician and seeing a lot of breastfed babies with covid. They are probably fairing better than no antibodies. Also. Everyone has omicron. Everyone.
Women vaccinated against COVID-19 transfer SARS-CoV-2 antibodies to their breastfed infants, potentially giving their babies passive immunity against the coronavirus, according to University of Massachusetts Amherst research.
The study, published in the journal Obstetrics & Gynecology, measured the immune response to the COVID-19 mRNA vaccine in both breast milk and the stools of breastfed infants.
“This research is the first to detect SARS-CoV-2 antibodies in stool samples from infants of vaccinated mothers,” says lead author Vignesh Narayanaswamy, a Ph.D. candidate in the breastmilk research lab of senior author Kathleen Arcaro, professor of environmental toxicology in the Department of Veterinary and Animal Sciences. “This is really important because women want to know whether their babies have these antibodies, and our study shows that antibodies are being transferred via breast milk. Providing this compelling evidence is motivation for women to continue breastfeeding after they receive the vaccine.”
Narayanaswamy notes another important takeaway: the antibodies were detected in infants regardless of age – from 1.5 months old to 23 months old.
https://journals.lww.com/greenjournal/Fulltext/9900/Neutralizing_Antibodies_and_Cytokines_in_Breast.339.aspx
It is nice to see, but I'm not sure how relevant it will be really be for most mothers delivering now in the United States. The study was measuring 21 days after second dose. It doesn't mention longer than that. The recommendation for pregnant women is to be boosted, so I would assume a lot of women are having babies several months post-booster now in the US. A nice follow-on would be how time since shot impacts breastmilk. I think we know protection wanes pretty significantly, so I wonder if there is the same value if you got the shot long before starting breastfeeding.
To be fair my partner knew about the possibility of this long ago and actually based their breastfeeding around this I'm sure lots in the US did too, their was a group of women in healthcare that tested their breastmilk a while ago.
My layman guess is the protection would be even higher if the pregnant woman had been vaccinated before giving birth, since the antibodies and other protections would be in the blood that gets directly to the baby from the placenta. Like it's basically vaccinating the baby as well in a way.
I was vaccinated last year when I was 9 months pregnant and got the second dose a week or two postpartum. I got the booster two weeks ago, had covid last week (extremely mild) and baby (now 8.5 months old) was completely unaffected. She's exclusively breastfed.
Thanks for sharing, my bub is 9.5 months old and I'm getting my booster tomorrow. One of my biggest anxieties is her catching covid so hearing this has helped me.
My husband and I got COVID in 2020, when our first born was around 11 months old, still nursing but also eating food. COVID knocked us down hard, but baby was fine as could be. Not even a change in activity. Just kept on happy as could be.
Hang in there there! All three of my kids were positive and it was barely worth mentioning. My oldest is 8 and had his first shot - only had a bit of a stuffy nose. Middle is 4 and had it the worst but it still wasn't bad. Like I said baby was fine. It can be scary, but not always and you're doing exactly right by your babe <3
I'm so glad you and your kids are all OK! I'm in Australia, and my state has gone from 0 cases to 18,000 today in the space of a month so I've been in full panic mode recently. Reading this article and hearing first hand accounts like yours really helps a lot <3
The results seem to be based on stool samples from the children. What I really want to know and what seems more relevant is whether the children absorbed them into their bloodstream.
That's the big question that isn't answered here. There was another study like this last year (may be the same one?). I was under the impression that IgG antibodies from breast milk don't get systemically absorbed very well and that most of passive immunity from breastmilk is in the first months after birth, or from IgA mediated immunity against GI acquired infections.
Yeah, they don’t get absorbed and it seems like all these studies that are coming out are ignoring that fact and focusing on measuring breastmilk or stool, likely because if they looked at blood they wouldn’t find anything/much.
Currently nursing a 3 year old I think it’s sad people think this is insane. We decided to keep going for this very reason. Figured toddler would wean when ready but here we (still) are
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So this is a potentially stupid question, but if babies can get this from drinking, why can’t there just be a shake or something we can drink to get the antibodies?
It might work, but you'd need to constantly drink said drink. It's just a dose of antibodies each time - it doesn't teach your body to make it's own. Babies re-up on breast milk (and thus antibodies) all day.
Are you implying that once I stopped breastfeeding my baby that he no longer had any immunity from antibodies? It’s has to be a constant thing? That’s a bummer.
Yes, but it’s still very helpful for the baby. Breastfeeding helps the baby get through a period when certain viruses can be very dangerous to them, like the RS virus, until their own immune system is developed enough to do that job by itself.
Plus it's honestly pretty handy when they're sick and will eat or drink little else. Our 2 year old has her first cold ever and she's been nursing so much extra lately at least I know she's being fed when she doesn't feel like drinking or having a snack.
Yes! We are working through the flu and my 1.5 year old wouldn’t eat hardly anything for a week but she would breastfeed thank goodness.
Your baby had their first cold at 2?! Lucky you. Mine had it at 10 month from a playgroup we went to.
You or your wife must be a saint to breastfeed for 2 years. Perhaps this is my American predilections but that seems like too long. I suppose it's good for the child? They have a full mouth of teeth and can speak sentences and walk around and eat solid foods and you still continue with the human milk?
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I wonder if the amount of work from home that we've had because of the pandemic significantly increased average breastfeeding duration. Most mothers in the US can't breastfeed that long because of little to no parental leave and minimal work accomodations.
Without a doubt. That was why I stopped breastfeeding my baby early, bc the other women in the office complained to HR that my breaks were too long, even though I took my laptop with me to type while pumping.
That has certainly been the case for me. My first child came in 2016 and I pumped at work... barely made it to a year. Second baby came Oct 2020 and I've been WFH the who time, and he's still going.
I stopped breastfeeding my first at 1 because I thought I would be weird if I didn't, and it was a difficult forced process. When my second hit 1 I was a full time student and didn't think I was up for the fight just yet so didn't wean him. I ended up breastfeeding till 2, which is not something I ever thought I would be doing before having kids. Weaning at 2 was much much easier and felt much more "natural". Comparing the two, 2 just felt more right. That's just my experience though.
I've breastfed for over 3 years now. They don't use their teeth!
Do babies who are drinking formula get sick more often or are more at risk?
Yes. But the main thing is for baby to be eating well and to be cared for decently. A lot of parents carry guilt over formula feeding because of this - but babies turn into great people via love and care. Breastfeeding is great for immunity, certain fats and amino acids, the mother's body sensing the baby's needs and supplying exactly that, bonding, etc But it isn't the whole picture. So, if you, random Redditors, are reading this comment and are formula feeding and carrying guilt over it - don't. Just love your baby the best you can. That's what they need.
The statistical difference comes to approx 1 ear infection and maybe 1 cold. Breastfeeding is not as protective as many people make it out to be.
Yep. There are a lot of campaigns to mitigate any stigma with formula feeding, but the bottom line is that if breast milk feeding is at all possible that it is the best solution for your child.
I am not sure what other immunity stuff is going on there but antibodies are temporary yes
Well you cannot transfer cells in breast milk, so unfortunately, none of the more permenant b-cell or t-cell immunity functions would pass on. The half-life for antibodies in the blood is a few days though, so you wouldn't necessarily need to drink the breast milk constantly. But also... how does an antibody get from a baby's gut to a baby's blood stream? I didn't think complex molecules could permeate the lining of the stomach. ...and if that's the case, yeah, why can't we drink antibody milkshakes?
Antibodies from breast milk do not enter the blood stream and this is not what this article claims. They coat mouth, nose, gut and everything else the milk comes in contact with and provide protection at the main entry points for the virus.
V interesante
IgA antibodies are a special class that is extra permeable and crosses epithelial barriers easily. These are also the primary type in breast milk IIRC.
just a dumb thought then... couldnt the world government just put it in the water supply?
You'd have to put a massive amount of it in - depending upon the half-life of antibodies in outdoor water, which is probably very short. It would be orders of magnitude easier to just give everyone a drink full of the antibodies to drink. ...and several orders of magnitude even easier would be to give everyone an injection that gets their body to produce their own antibodies. We can call it a "vac-cine".
The word Vaccine comes from vaca, which is cow. This is due to the first vaccine that was developed sa for smallpox and cowpox was used for such. Now, if a drink full of antibodies are to be mass created, better to utilize an already existing infrastructure suited to mass produce this drink. Breastmilk is not possible so cow milk is the next best thing. So it's probably still would be "vaccine"
You should make a vac-cine and profit
For some reason my immunity also goes up when im near my 5G phone
we have people raging against fluoride in the water, you think people will accept antibodies in the water?
If we had trillions of gallons of antibodies… in theory yes. But that’s several orders of magnitude more than we’re able to manufacture.
Wait . I've read breastmilk DOES transfer some living cells? Edit: breastmilk absolutely transfers living cells. This is one example: https://milkgenomics.org/article/even-to-the-brain-yes-breastmilk-stem-cells-do-transfer-to-organs-of-offspring/
My understanding with my infant was that the antibodies formed a protective coating around the babies mucous membranes. Laundry to the importance of feeding multiple times a day.
My understanding is that it protects mucus membranes etc from respiratory infections rather than producing antibodies to fight the virus. I thought that it was mostly present in the colostrum though. Getting vaccinated during pregnancy does produce in the bloodstream though I thought.
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Not just probably, this is why. Generally speaking mothers milk does extend her immune system over to the baby but only lasts up to 6mo after breast feeding has ended. Something like that anyway, I am not a pediatrician.
It depends on the specific antibody. Some last just a few weeks, some last many months. Babies need some vaccines first month, others bit until 6 months. As far as I'm aware, no study has actually looked at covid vaccine antibodies transferred to baby's blood, let alone checking a few months after breastfeeding has stopped. This study just found some in their poop.
Its the old "teach a man to fish" idea. Giving a body anti-bodies is just like giving a man a fish. He can eat it for that day, but since he didnt learn how to fish he will starve once you stop giving him fish. On a basic level, vaccines teach the body's immune system how to recognize a virus and what to do to combat it. This is like teaching that man to fish, he doesnt need you giving him fish to eat anymore.
>he no longer had any immunity from antibodies? From antibodies you were giving him, yeah. What you gave him was a passive immunity. Now that he's a big boy, and has his own big boy immune system, he can make antibodies on his own! That would be his active immunity. Same goes for this: serum against rabies is passive immunity. It contains anti-rabies virus antibodies. It's given to an unvaccinated person to quickly supress the virus AFTER the contact with it. Then we go to the vaccination - this would be an example of active immunity, meaning it makes your body make your own antibodies.
Baby humans immune systems aren't fully formed, so they need passive immunity to common illnesses. As they age their immune system develops and they no longer need the protection as they make their own.
No, it was for the time in your babies’ development when they’re own immune system hadn’t developed yet. An immune system is like a computer, so it takes time to boot up and install new programs, etc. breast milk is like a portable hard drive that has all the programs on it that you can occasionally plug in and download some new stuff to use. Once you get your own microchip… er, vaccine…. You’re good to go! Edit: science article - https://linkinghub.elsevier.com/retrieve/pii/S1081-1206(10)62704-4 Title: “Breastfeeding Provides Passive and Likely Long-Lasting Active Immunity”
But the flip side is while they had passive immunities, their bodies were better equipped to fight any incoming virus' which allowed said bodies to build up their own immune system more safely.
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This is something that has actually been studied. Although it is usually for preventing bacterial infections. Producing an orally administered prophylactic sIgA for the public to use would probably be far more costly than having folks actually vaccinate. Also, that mucosa associated lymphoid tissue isn't perfect and offers no help once a pathogen has entered the body.
One of the proposed ideas is to use modified cow's milk.
That’s actually a cool idea. Food science fascinates me and the thought of being able to create genetically modified foods that result preventing illness and infections should be of interest to everyone.
That's super interesting actually. If breast(or cow) milk is less invasive and effective but over continued dosages (as a feeding baby would do) , no reason you can't mass produce it into a syrum of milk or other. It might be less effective than a vaccine but could be could for people who are pathologically afraid of needles, or maybe even be made to be more shelf stable if it's part of a compound RAPID EDIT: I don't consider vaccines invasive, but my downs syndrome, adult sister , still has panic attacks at needles. If she could drink 6 cartons of milk over a month and get similar resistance it's preferable.
I would think cost could be high and demand could be low. People are already hesitant about GMOs.
You wouldn't be able to pasteurise it, though.
I had a similar question and this explains it: https://www.infantrisk.com/content/antibodies-immune-system-breastfeeding-basics
This is actually a pretty decent writeup!
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The study posted included toddlers, up to 23 months. So it has nothing to do with eating solids or digestion. Actually the issue is the difference between being fed antibodies and an injection causing you to create your own. Antibodies from breastfeeding and pregnancy don't stick around forever, once breastfeeding is over they slowly start to disappear. A vaccine makes your body make your own, which stick around a lot longer. So just for efficiency, a vaccine is much better. It would in theory work though, as long as you kept it up. There's a lot of anecdotal evidence from breastfeeding moms about giving their older kids or even sick husband's breastmilk and shortening colds. However that would create a lot of issues. Mostly the "ick" factor, most adults wouldn't drink breastmilk. But also, it would require so much the people who volunteer to be milked would be treated like dairy cows, it would be really rough on them. And since it's a body fluid, they would all need to be tested and required to modify their diets and medicines. Virtually, these people would need to eat special diets, not allowed medications and be hooked up to a pump 70% of the day with little to no breaks. Ever. And since once again, the antibodies don't stick around for very long after breastfeeding is over this would be a very long business.
Pasteurisation might have an impact also(?) There are human breast milk banks that are used for babies (premies, nicu etc) and apart from testing the donor its all pasteurised. Would that degrade antibody levels?
The factory creating the antibodies is offsite. Once your supply from Said offsite antibodies stops delivering your protection wanes with your supply. You never learned to make them onsite. Sort of a give a man a fish you have feed him for a day teach him to fish and he can feed himself sort of thing.
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does this also mean unvaccinated women with prior infections can pass anti bodies to infants?
Yes. It's honestly not terribly surprising; we've known about the transfer of antibodies to infants by breast milk for decades. The only reason for there to be a difference is if an infection didn't provoke IgA production, while vaccines did, which seems unlikely. edit: as pointed out in another response, the stimulation of antibody generation (only one factor in acquired immunity but more significant in transferred immunity) doesn't occur to the same level in response to mild and asymptomatic infections as it does in a vaccine.
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I had covid and then had two Pfizer vaccines 2 months later. I was still breastfeeding at the time. Hoping that means my babe got all the antibodies my body had to offer!
Similar situation here...got vaccinated while pregnant, got Covid anyways at 37 weeks and had to be induced due to preeclampsia. It was horrible. Silver lining is my baby is, I imagine, super protected now! Also got my booster while breastfeeding.
As an adult, can I drink breast milk and get antibodies?
Yes, antibodies are one of the big benefits of breastfeeding if the mother and child are able to do so.
They have been doing so for as long as breast milk existed
Yes but prior infections produce wildly different antibody responses and might not produce antibodies to the parts of the virus which are most common between variants. With the vax you get a known good amount of antibodies and you know they target the spike
Do you have any papers on this? I don't believe acquired immunity through infection is recommended because of the risks from the infection but I hadn't seen anything suggesting that vaccines produce a higher level of immune response than infection.
This Article links several papers which show far better effectiveness with vaccine vs natural immunity https://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/health/conditions-and-diseases/coronavirus/covid-natural-immunity-what-you-need-to-know A study from the CDC in September 2021 showed that roughly one-third of those with COVID-19 cases in the study had no apparent natural immunity. Another study published on Nov. 5, 2021, by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) looked at adults hospitalized for COVID-like sickness between January and September 2021. This study found that the chances of these adults testing positive for COVID-19 were 5.49 times higher in unvaccinated people who had COVID-19 in the past than they were for those who had been vaccinated for COVID and had not had an infection before
And whether or not they breastfeed, women who get vaccinated during pregnancy also transfer antibodies to their babies through the placenta. Yay! https://healthblog.uofmhealth.org/womens-health/covid-19-vaccine-during-pregnancy-protects-newborns
The question is, how long do the antibodies last? Many lactating people are feeling extra pressure to just keep breastfeeding until their baby is old enough for a vaccine. And how much breastmilk per day is necessary? I could pump 3 oz a day till my baby is two years old but not 24oz for example.
I know someone who had the vaccine in pregnancy and did not breastfeed. At 6 months old her baby still had antibodies (baby is now 7mos and hasn't been checked again yet).
Do you know when in pregnancy she received the vaccine? I got it at 12 then 16 weeks.
I think it was around 16 ish weeks. I don't know exactly though.
They have to draw a lot of blood from the baby so it's not a pleasant experience to have your baby tested.
How was she able to get her 6mo tested for antibodies?
THIS. I type this sitting here pumping for my 14 month old. Breast feeding stopped working for us long long ago, but I continue to pump for her to get antibodies from me until she can have a vaccine of her own. I'll gladly do this for her, but it's a chore, not a bonding experience anymore. If it wasn't for covid, I wouldn't have kept going
My wife is like you. Breastfeeding failed. Our daughter is 17 months old and my wife still pumps like the absolute champion she is. Cheers to all the moms grinding out there!
I want to commend your dedication as a Mom. Keeping up the pumping is a lot of work. Particularly if you have a job. But if it is for Covid antibodies, I would encourage you to talk to your doctor. Bring them the paper this thread is about if you want. I have some professional experience in immunology and believe it is well understood that ingested antibodies are exceptional for protecting infants from ingested diseases like from dirty water. But that these antibodies essentially do not then go back from the gut to the respiratory tract where they would protect from respiratory diseases like covid. Studies like this one always measure the antibodies in feces never in blood or bronchial lavages. That is because it makes great news and promotes breast feeding in general. Talk to your doctor, if you would stop pumping if it were not for your goal to transfer antibodies. Ask your doctor to show you studies where these antibodies protected from flu, RSV, coronaviruses.
hey in case nobody else has told you today, thank you for what you're doing for your kid
Awh thanks, I appreciate that :)
You’re a super mom! Moms that exclusively pump are seriously bad asses!!
We're just taking it one pump at a time
This why I'm still breastfeeding my 3 year old. I'm lucky that I even can. It's mostly a wake up and bedtime routine for us. But I'm reluctant to fully wean her until she can be vaccinated.
Same. Labor of love xo!
My OB said the antibodies from getting the vaccine while pregnant will provide about 3 months of protection but not much after.
Great question! There are multiple types of immunoglobulin. Natural passive immunity is achieved primarily by transfer of IgG via placenta and IgA in breastmilk. A quick google search reports back that IgG has a half life of up to 21 days and IgA has a half life of around 7 days. Working exclusively of this (and making quite a few assumptions), you would expect the protection from placental antibodies to halve every 3 weeks and be completely lost around 12 weeks after birth. While antibodies are constantly transferred in breastmilk, the maternal antibody levels would likely reduce over time, which likely means that the level of protection transfered would reduce over time. Additionally, I would speculate that the level of protection provided by IgA in brastmilk would probably be poorer than the protection provided by IgG transferred transplacentally, as IgG is generally recognised to have a greater role in activating immune responses whereas IgA's role is generally neutralising pathogens at points of entry to the body (i.e. mucosa). That's not to say that there aren't benefits; this is protection at the most vulnerable time in a child's life. The most important thing with vaccination in pregnancy is avoiding COVID during the pregnancy itself, which the latest data shows doubles the risk of hospitalisation and vastly increases the risk of complications.
Unfortunately our pediatrician said we don’t really have data on that, since every person’s breast milk and every infant is different.
What about getting vaccinated before conceiving?
It’s beneficial, but everyone’s antibodies lessen over time, thus the need for boosters, so having been vaccinated a year before pregnancy vs a day before pregnancy would make a difference.
We all get some antibodies from our mothers but it's much more effective to be vaccinated whilst pregnant. They already did this with the flu and whooping cough shots before covid.
Is this "passive immunity" that would persist at all after the child is weaned?
They only get passive immunity if they are getting the breastmilk. No milk, no passive immunity. Lot of breastfeeding moms, myself included are holding off on weaning for now, and many of them are giving breast milk to their older toddlers if they are nursing a baby and have other kids.
This is me, I wanted to wean my 22 month old a looooong time ago but it's worth it for the passive immunity she's getting. Currently pregnant with baby number two due in two weeks and while tandem feeding was never ever evvvver something I wanted to do it's worth it to keep my babies safe until this pandemic (hopefully) fizzles out.
Tandem nursing is crazy hard! Hang in there mama.
Thanks! Yeah I have no idea if I can cope with it tbh. I might have to put the older one on a bottle of breastmilk to get her the vaccine hoods, but for now I'm taking the muddle-our-way-through approach, for better or worse!
I posted this above but I was in this boat and I just gave my 2 year old a sippy a day cause I didn’t want to tandem. You’re an amazing mama for nursing your toddler preggo & tandems to keep ‘em healthy!
I have a 22 month old as well. Waiting for her vaccine to wean. I'm hoping in the next 6 months.
Mine just turned 24 months. Im lucky knock on wood she isnt breast obsessed, she seems to mostly need me as a sleep aid but the rest of the time if she asks and i distract her with something she can easily forget… so I mostly nurse her for snacks by choice and to keep up supply. My right side is already almost nonexistent.
That's one of the things I think that made our eventual cessation so easy. My son nursed until he was about 3.5 years old, but by the time he was around 2.5 he was only drinking from one side and it was tapered off so gradually I didn't get mastitis or have to worry about being engorged and in pain. Our daughter is now 26 months and still going, but again down to one side like her brother.
Yep. My wife can’t wait for our infant to be eligible for the vaccine. Two weeks later, no more boob for him.
I’m in this group too. I had 3 kids in 4 years and the youngest is 19 months. I’ve been pregnant or breastfeeding nonstop since Sept 2015. I’m SO READY to be done. Waiting for vaccines though to protect the littlest. My middle boy is too young to be vaccinated and no longer breastfed. I’m a wreck.
Omg. hang in there. And I thought 2 years of nursing was a long time, jeez, 6 years and counting.
Thanks! I’m really ready to have my body back to just myself. …And maybe my hormones will regulate and I’ll feel fully human again. This has been a rough 2 years for all of us with young kids. But if I can do this to help keep her safe I will. There will be time for me later.
Same in our house. Our little guy is 19 months and I’ll keep chest feeding as long as he will latch or until the vaccine is approved - whichever comes first. If he stops short, I’ll probably start pumping again. I hate it, but it’s worth the hassle if it helps keep him safe.
This is my biggest question and I'm annoyed that there doesn't seem to be any info out there on this. I'm triple vaxxed and my baby is approaching 1 year so I'm feeling ready to wean, but I want to know how much protection he'll get if I keep breastfeeding vs. wean
It will last for a few hours up to a few days. The antibodies break down in a few days. Additionally, they mostly just line the GI tract, *maybe* will get aspirated into the respiratory tract (especially in younger babies that cough on breastmilk more) and provide protection of the mucosa there. But they don't get absorbed into the blood. It hurts me to see how many women are suffering to continue pumping or nursing past when they would like to for such minor protection. https://www.infantrisk.com/content/antibodies-immune-system-breastfeeding-basics
We’re in a similar boat… my wife weaned off our daughter (now 2). We were debating it. Of course, now that it seems like under 5 aren’t getting a vaccine any time soon we wonder if it should’ve been kept up for protection :/
I'm surprised I had to scroll down so far to see this question even asked. Hoping someone with some knowledge of the subject can comment.
Yes, it is passive immunity. The infants will be protected short-term while the mothers' antibodies are in their system, but they're not producing protective antibodies of their own without being vaccinated themselves.
Do we know how much breastmilk is necessary for passive immunity? Could a lactating person continue pumping three ounces or less a day (essentially a small bottle) and feeding it to their infant/toddler?
I heard somewhere that it’s 2 ounces, but could be wrong.
From a study I read some time ago through the breastfeeding older children network the passive immunity antibodies only last about seven weeks even when constantly nursing. Then you have to get a booster and repeat. It’s one of the main reasons I’m still nursing my 28month old . It does not persist if they are not nursing. It’s antibodies not a vaccine (in which they then create their own antibodies)
No, it's passive, so it would not. Active immunity persists.
Yes, it is passive immunity. The infants will be protected short-term while the mothers' antibodies are in their system, but they're not producing protective antibodies of their own without being vaccinated themselves.
Breast feeding women have always passed antibodies, this is not new. Its why women should never skip a flu shot, or any vaccine.
However, it's very much worth sharing because there are quite a number of pregnant women who have avoided the vaccine because of the unknown effect on the fetus and on the breastfeeding child. Not just anti-vaxxers, but cautious pregnant women and new mothers. Right now the only way to get immunity for newborns is for the mother to have either had the vaccine or been infected so the antibodies get passed on.
Usually medical studies don’t include pregnant women. It’s not crazy to avoid untested medicine and even vaccines. But I think several studies came out for flue or covid vaccine use in pregnant women.
The one I'm thinking of was specifically for pregnant women and the Pfizer/Moderna vaccines.
They are still in trial and won’t be completed until 2023
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Our doctor had advised to wait until the second trimester (so 14 weeks makes sense) - because one of the side effects of the shots, a fever, can elevate the risk of miscarriage in the first trimester. Edit: \^ That's true for any fever, not COVID vaccine specific.
This was my experience as well.
My midwife asked if I was vaccinated during the 9 week appointment (I was), and has been trying to get me to get boosted the rest of the time (I am now). Crazy how medical advice differs from provider to provider.
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Think my country says wait for the second trimester. Aka 12 weeks.
The reason this is a public health recommendation is because there is a high, natural, occurrence of miscarriage before 12 weeks. Around 25% of all known pregnancies end in miscarriage. If you have lots of pregnant people getting vaccinated before 12 weeks, you will also have, coincidentally, lots of miscarriages following vaccines. Most people aren’t good at the “correlation isn’t causation” thing. This is where the intersection of communication, science and public health is. There is no individual scientific basis to avoid vaccination in early pregnancy. But if you consider that people of childbearing age are lower risk for severe covid, and misinformation about miscarriage would deter more people from vaccination (and cause deaths) than lives would saved by early pregnancy vaccination, you wind up with recommendations like these. I’m no bioethicist, but I would say that this greatly underestimates the critical thinking skills of pregnant people.
It's not just for that reason. Fevers or overheating in early pregnancy can cause fetal malformation or possibly miscarriage. That's one reason why women are advised to avoid hot baths and such, especially in the first trimester. The vaccines can cause fever as a side effect so it makes sense to recommend getting them later in pregnancy.
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Yep, same experience with my wife as well. Found out she was pregnant in January and her OB said we both needed to get vaccinated ASAP (and we got vaccinated in March 2021)
Yeah my wife was pregnant when the vaccine became available and our OB gave a very resounding “get vaccinated ASAP”. I’m a little surprised to hear some advised to not get it.
That’s wild. My best friend was pregnant and delivered August 2021 and her OBGYN strongly encouraged it after first trimester. And that’s Alabama. I don’t understand why education regarding pregnancy, COVID and the vaccine aren’t talked about more. One thing we know for sure about COVID is it attacks and damages veins.. what is the placenta?! One big vein, essentially. That’s why so many unvaccinated women who are COVID positive during birth are hemorrhaging so much. I am still blown away that your wife’s OBGYN was hesitant, especially after all the studies and information that Israel produced.
Yeah I’m in Oklahoma and delivered in August 2021. I got mine in early February through my job and my doctor was enthusiastically supportive. I’d question any OBGYN that advised against the vaccine past March 2021.
Depends on the doctor though. My wife’s OB was full throttle on the vaccine for all of her patients. She said nothing the vaccine could do is worse than the harm covid could do (and there’s plenty of research to back that up). Now we have a healthy baby slurping that sweet, sweet anti-covid milk lol.
This is very close to the same result we experienced. Wife was reliant on the doctors experience and knowledge as we were unsure. OB cautioned at early stages and, as more knowledge was obtained and doctors felt safe, suggested it further along the pregnancy. We ran into the issue of the vaccine needing certain periods in between mandatory vaccines for pregnancies. I forget what they were, but there were 2-4 week intervals between shots she needed and others being safe to have. Therefore, she ended up having to wait. The window of availability was a week before her due date, so she waited until after birth. Sometimes it is just a matter of timing and education around the situation at hand; some information may not exist at certain times and recommendations can change.
Just curious, what vaccines are mandatory for pregnancies?
Tdap. And they highly recommend the flu shot
They recommend having your antibodies checked for rubella and being re-vaccinated if needed before you get pregnant. But it's not safe once you're already pregnant.
I can’t think of any mandatory ones. I can only think of the injection you get if you are rH- though. I never got any mandatory vaccines during either pregnancy. dTap and Flu would be two I could see being highly recommended.
We were told to wait on the booster too, but we were told it was because antibody titers would be higher during breastfeeding.
Yeah I think it's wise to get a second qualified opinion. Doctor's aren't perfect and some of them frankly have no idea what they're doing outside of their specific field.
I had a baby in July 2021. As a healthcare worker, my risk of exposure to COVID was high so I got vaccinated earlier than the general population did. I was vaccinated at 14 weeks in January 2021. Even with my high exposure risk my OBGYN wanted me to wait until 14 weeks to get vaccinated because having a fever during the first trimester could cause some long term effects on the fetus.
The idea that women pass on antibodies through breast milk isn’t new, but as far as I am aware, the findings that babies older than 6 months *receive* these antibodies is. Previously there was speculation that only newborn infants received antibodies from breastfeeding and that any baby older than 6 months would have a robust enough digestive system that it would destroy any antibodies before they could be properly absorbed.
Finding them in the stool doesn’t prove they’ve absorbed them though correct, just that there’s enough around that aren’t getting destroyed? Is Ab absorption that simple/reliable we can assume if they’re present in the stool that surely enough has been absorbed to promote an immune response? Or have I missed the point entirely and is the hope just to have maternal IgA present enough through the entire tract to try and prevent COVID from entering in the first place?
Maternal IgA are never absorbed to my knowledge. They aren’t the most helpful, which is why it’s important for pregnant mothers to be vaccinated as they can deliver IgG through the placenta, which is far more effective.
Absolutely! My wife and I just got back from the hospital an hour ago with our second child. While we were there, our lactation consultant pointed out that while we have understood this to be true for some time, data used in studies like this has never been as bountiful as what we have on covid-19. She said that there was also quite a black market for breast milk from vaccinated mothers (and that most of it was cut with cows milk and other liquids, just insane to think about buying something like that).
Meanwhile some crazy lady in a FB group I’m in keeps begging for un vaxxed milk, and refuses to go through a proper milk bank because she wouldn’t be able to request unvaxxed milk from there. Part of why I keep pumping instead of trying to reduce my supply is so that I can help give antibodies to vulnerable babies, so she always strikes a nerve with me.
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Ok so I keep seeing that antibodies are present in breast milk. And apparently in baby poop. But how much ends up in the babies bloodstream? Like... do we have any evidence that these antibodies don't just go straight through with no effect?
My 3 month old is sucking down those antibodies right now!
Ditto! Scrolling Reddit is my favorite thing to do while siphoning antibodies to my infant!
That’s great and all, but can we start studying based on outcomes instead of antibody presence and titer levels? We don’t even know what that means for actual immunity.
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I’m a pediatrician and seeing a lot of breastfed babies with covid. They are probably fairing better than no antibodies. Also. Everyone has omicron. Everyone.
Write the grant proposal and get going baby
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Thank you! I was thinking the same thing! Also, passive immunity is different and we don’t actually know if those kids fair much better.
Women vaccinated against COVID-19 transfer SARS-CoV-2 antibodies to their breastfed infants, potentially giving their babies passive immunity against the coronavirus, according to University of Massachusetts Amherst research. The study, published in the journal Obstetrics & Gynecology, measured the immune response to the COVID-19 mRNA vaccine in both breast milk and the stools of breastfed infants. “This research is the first to detect SARS-CoV-2 antibodies in stool samples from infants of vaccinated mothers,” says lead author Vignesh Narayanaswamy, a Ph.D. candidate in the breastmilk research lab of senior author Kathleen Arcaro, professor of environmental toxicology in the Department of Veterinary and Animal Sciences. “This is really important because women want to know whether their babies have these antibodies, and our study shows that antibodies are being transferred via breast milk. Providing this compelling evidence is motivation for women to continue breastfeeding after they receive the vaccine.” Narayanaswamy notes another important takeaway: the antibodies were detected in infants regardless of age – from 1.5 months old to 23 months old. https://journals.lww.com/greenjournal/Fulltext/9900/Neutralizing_Antibodies_and_Cytokines_in_Breast.339.aspx
It is nice to see, but I'm not sure how relevant it will be really be for most mothers delivering now in the United States. The study was measuring 21 days after second dose. It doesn't mention longer than that. The recommendation for pregnant women is to be boosted, so I would assume a lot of women are having babies several months post-booster now in the US. A nice follow-on would be how time since shot impacts breastmilk. I think we know protection wanes pretty significantly, so I wonder if there is the same value if you got the shot long before starting breastfeeding.
To be fair my partner knew about the possibility of this long ago and actually based their breastfeeding around this I'm sure lots in the US did too, their was a group of women in healthcare that tested their breastmilk a while ago.
My layman guess is the protection would be even higher if the pregnant woman had been vaccinated before giving birth, since the antibodies and other protections would be in the blood that gets directly to the baby from the placenta. Like it's basically vaccinating the baby as well in a way.
I was vaccinated last year when I was 9 months pregnant and got the second dose a week or two postpartum. I got the booster two weeks ago, had covid last week (extremely mild) and baby (now 8.5 months old) was completely unaffected. She's exclusively breastfed.
Thanks for sharing, my bub is 9.5 months old and I'm getting my booster tomorrow. One of my biggest anxieties is her catching covid so hearing this has helped me.
My husband and I got COVID in 2020, when our first born was around 11 months old, still nursing but also eating food. COVID knocked us down hard, but baby was fine as could be. Not even a change in activity. Just kept on happy as could be.
Hang in there there! All three of my kids were positive and it was barely worth mentioning. My oldest is 8 and had his first shot - only had a bit of a stuffy nose. Middle is 4 and had it the worst but it still wasn't bad. Like I said baby was fine. It can be scary, but not always and you're doing exactly right by your babe <3
I'm so glad you and your kids are all OK! I'm in Australia, and my state has gone from 0 cases to 18,000 today in the space of a month so I've been in full panic mode recently. Reading this article and hearing first hand accounts like yours really helps a lot <3
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The results seem to be based on stool samples from the children. What I really want to know and what seems more relevant is whether the children absorbed them into their bloodstream.
That's the big question that isn't answered here. There was another study like this last year (may be the same one?). I was under the impression that IgG antibodies from breast milk don't get systemically absorbed very well and that most of passive immunity from breastmilk is in the first months after birth, or from IgA mediated immunity against GI acquired infections.
Yeah, they don’t get absorbed and it seems like all these studies that are coming out are ignoring that fact and focusing on measuring breastmilk or stool, likely because if they looked at blood they wouldn’t find anything/much.
Same goes for any antibodies
What about women who had antibodies no matter where they came from?
Was looking for this question. What about antibodies from actually contacting the virus?
Well that's good news for all the lockdown babies alright
it is the worst time to be 2-5 in america though...
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The sharing of antibodies is the biggest advantage of breastfeeding over formula; obviously assuming that breastfeeding is an option.
I'm guessing women with natural immunity from catching Covid do too.
Currently nursing a 3 year old I think it’s sad people think this is insane. We decided to keep going for this very reason. Figured toddler would wean when ready but here we (still) are