vertical transmission of coronavirus disease 2019: a case report

Background: coronavirus disease 2019 (covid-19) is an emerging viral disease with a high rate of transmissibility that has spread and become the first pandemic of the century. there are limited data available regarding covid-19 during pregnancy. an important question is whether pregnant mothers transmit the virus to their fetuses or newborns. case report: this study was conducted to investigate the vertical transmission of the covid-19 virus from pregnant mothers to fetuses. this study reported the case of a preterm newborn admitted to the neonatal intensive care unit of imam khomeini hospital urmia, iran, from a covid-19-positive mother with severe respiratory illness. a preterm female newborn with a gestational age of 34 weeks, 1,800 g weight, and 1-minute and 5-minute apgar scores of 4 and 5, respectively, was born through the emergency cesarean section from a 39-year-old gravid 1 mother. she was positive for covid-19, in two consecutive reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction tests which were performed 48 h apart from each other. conclusion: according to the limited available documents of our case, the researchers claimed that vertical transmission of covid-19 was possible at this time.