Doctors at the Ram Manohar Lohia (RML) Hospital in Delhi have said the coronavirus disease (Covid-19) can spread from the mother to her child when the baby is still in the womb, a report said on Saturday.

Hindustan, HT’s sister publication, reported that a child born at RML Hospital to a woman, who recovered from Covid-19 recently, has been found positive for the infection.

Dr Rahul Chaudhary, an assistant professor with RML’s department of neonatal diseases, said the mother had recovered after contracting the virus at the time she delivered her baby.

But after the child was born and her sample was sent for examination after six hours, the newborn tested positive for Covid-19.

Chaudhary claimed that the birth of a coronavirus-infected child from the corona negative mother’s womb is the first case in the country.

He said research in China had shown that a child can be infected with Sars-Cov-2, which causes Covid-19, through the umbilical cord, although there was no solid evidence regarding it.

“A woman giving birth to her child after being cured of coronavirus disease suggests that the corona infection can also reach the baby from the mother’s umbilical cord. However, it is very unlikely,” Dr Chaudhary was quoted as saying by Hindustan.

The 25-year-old woman, a resident of Nangloi, was pregnant and was admitted to RML Hospital last month. She was tested for coronavirus disease on June 11 and was found to be infected. After this, her husband was also tested positive.

The woman was again found positive after a repeat Covid-19 test on 25 June and on July 7 when the doctors conducted the RTPCR examination for the third time, the report came back negative.

Dr Chaudhary said the woman’s delivery was done the next day after the report came negative and the child was examined only after six hours.

Doctor Kirti, an assistant professor of the hospital’s department of microbiology, said coronavirus is present in the baby with high viral load.

The baby is in the hospital.

Scientists, in an editorial in the American Journal of Perinatology in June, have said that the spread of Sars-Cov-2 from a mother to foetus had not been well-established.

The researchers at the University of California Davis Health, however, said it could happen in multiple ways including viral transmission from the mother to the foetus or intrauterine transmission.

The transmission from mother to baby during or directly after delivery and superficial exposure to Sars-Cov-2 are also possible, they added.