Breastfeeding of Infants Born to Mothers with COVID-19: A Rapid Review

Nan Yang; Siyi Che; Jingyi Zhang; Xia Wang; Yuyi Tang; Jianjian Wang; Liping Huang; Chenglin Wang; Hairong Zhang; Muna Baskota; Yanfang Ma; Qi Zhou; Xufei Luo; Shu Yang; Xixi Feng; Weiguo Li; Toshio Fukuoka; Hyeong Sik Ahn; Myeong Soo Lee; Zhengxiu Luo; Enmei Liu; Yaolong Chen

Although benefits of breastfeeding are obvious, contraindications should be considered in terms of infectious diseases. The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) (25) advises against breastfeeding if the mother is infected with human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) (26) , while the WHO recommends HIV-infected mothers who are fully supported for antiretroviral therapy should breastfeed (27) . The US CDC also recommends that mothers infected with human type I or type II T-cell lymphovirus, or Ebola virus (28) should not breastfeed or express breast milk. These viruses have been confirmed to be transmitted via breast milk, and once infected, they can induce long-term detrimental effects on children's growth and development, and even increase infant mortality. Also if the mother is infected with untreated brucellosis or active herpes simplex virus (29) , the US CDC highly recommends suspending breastfeeding or expressing breast milk until the infection gets well treated and controlled. In cases of untreated active tuberculosis or chickenpox during active period, the mother should stop breastfeeding, but expresses breast milk instead (30) . All rights reserved. No reuse allowed without permission. the author/funder, who has granted medRxiv a license to display the preprint in perpetuity.