COVID-19’lu kadınların bebeklerinde emzirmenin desteklenmesi üzerine

Abstract

I have read Erdeve et al. (1) review on behalf of the Turkish Neonatal Society (TNS) concerning the decision to breastfeed an infant born to a severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus (SARS-CoV)-2-positive women with interest.Although, in my opinion, the TNS should be congratulated for this effort, I felt obliged to comment on the authors’ overly-cautious approach to breastfeeding by women with probable, possible or confirmed coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) instead of being in favor of giving mother’s milk to her infant. The authors give an impression of discouraging breastfeeding by stating “we are not completely sure that the virus cannot be transmitted via breast milk.” This statement is correct according to the Chinese Pediatrics COVID-19 working group’s recommendation of routinely separating the newborn from the mother precluding breastfeeding (2); however, a considerable amount of evidence has accumulated since the issuance of these recommendations and many authoritative scientific institutions including the World Health Organization, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists, have issued guidelines on safe breastfeeding of women with COVID-19 (3-5).Also, the recommendation of “feeding the infant with mother’s milk on condition that maternal milk COVID-19 polymerase chain reaction testing is found negative in institutions capable of analyzing mother’s milk” should be removed from the document entitled “Turkish Neonatology Society Recommendations on Approach to Newborn Infants in Neonatal and Perinatal Period” because novel research has shown that SARS-CoV-2 ribonucleic acid detected in human milk does not represent viable, proliferous viruses (6, 7).In the light of these advances, I think the time has come to stand for mother milk’s more firmly, opting for more favorable statements in our guideline texts, such as “We recommend that mothers with suspected or confirmed COVID-19 should be encouraged to initiate and continue breastfeeding” to maintain, even boost mothers’ and healthcare workers’ enthusiasm for breastfeeding in this era of pandemic (3).