COVID-19: Mothers are being kept away from premature babies over infection fear; WHO says restrictions put such babies at risk

The World Health Organization (WHO) said that pandemic restrictions in maternity wards could have fatal consequences for premature babies.

In many countries, mothers are largely kept away from such babies for fear of infecting the newborns. However, keeping children and mothers together early in a baby’s life has a profound positive effect on the child, and WHO said the benefits far outweighed the risk of the infection.

Newborns all over the world have “a right to the life-saving contact they need with their parents,” said Anshu Banerjee, a WHO expert in maternal and newborn health. He added that this should not be denied due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

A model calculation found that risk of death due to contact restriction was 65 percent higher than the risk of the child contracting coronavirus through such contact.