Design
This prospective multicenter cohort study was conducted between July 3rd
2020 and January 24th 2021 at Emek and Baruch-Padeh Medical Centers, two
university-affiliated medical centers in north Israel. The study
protocol was approved by the Local Institutional Review Boards
(60-20-EMC and 90-20-POR). Informed consent was obtained from all
individuals who participated in the study.
The study cohort consisted of pregnant womenâ„18 years old who had a
positive nasopharyngeal swab for SARS-CoV-2, as determined by RT-PCR,
during pregnancy.
Women were enrolled at admission to the delivery ward, before delivery,
by one of the team investigators. After enrollment, SARS-CoV-2
anti-nucleocapsid-IgG, anti-spike-IgG and anti-spike-IgM levels in
maternal and cord blood were measured near delivery. Nasopharyngeal
samples were collected from the neonates in the Department of
Neonatology and were subjected to SARS-CoV-2 PCR testing. Participants
were excluded from the study if both cord blood serology tests and
neonatal RT-PCR could not be obtained due to technical reasons.