Vertical Transmission – an Overview

Some diseases can be passed down from mother to fetus in pregnancy. if there are fractures in the capillary membrane, after birth, or while nursing These methods have been shown to transmit HIV, toxoplasma gondii, rubella, CMV, and herpesviruses from parent to the kid. This is referred to as vertical transmission. Vertical transmission seems to have the capability to be destructive, with significant consequences for life satisfaction and perhaps even eventual death of bacterial contamination. As a result, there is a pressing need for us to comprehend vertical transmission and devise more important preventative techniques. Furthermore, the recent COVID-19 pandemic has raised worries about the SARS-CoV-2 virus’s propensity for vertical transmission and indeed the related diseases. 

Key Points ON Vertical Transmission 

• New-born babies to pregnant women who would be contaminated with a certain virus seem to be at risk of catching the virus from their mother. Transmission is so much more probable when the infant comes into close touch with the mother’s tissues, including during nursing, and also while pregnant if the maternal barrier is breached, although even the majority of vertical infections occur following birth.
• These diseases are a leading cause of death globally, but although much is established about the substantial health risks they represent to new-borns, the specific methods of transmission over the cellular membranes remain unknown, and TORCH infected individuals continue.
• Increasingly, the Zika virus (ZIKV) has been shown to be vertically communicable, joining to the TORCH infections that have a while back become such a field of study. The development of the Zika virus has highlighted the need of addressing the progression of the disease.
• Infections involving TORCH pathogens have been related to serious illnesses in new-borns in affluent nations such as the United States. Furthermore, the number of cases in affluent nations continue to be high, having up to 4,000 new-borns born in the United States each year with toxoplasmosis diseases, which might cause hallucinations, learning disability, seizure disorders, and other complications. Infectious diseases with the CMV virus are becoming increasingly prevalent, with 40,000 new-borns born in the United States each year having congenital abnormalities that might need extensive surgical treatment.

• The findings underscore the crucial need for more research to understand the pathways that allow a disease to be transferred vertically and to integrate this information into new, effective preventative methods.

Prevention techniques for vertical transmission

While more research into the transmission pathway is needed, there are presently several preventive treatments in use to minimize bacterial vertical transmission.

Doctors screen women for Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) to prevent vertical transmission, so in the particular circumstance of evidence of infection, best practices include attempting to influence maternal infection, having to implement antenatal care antiviral therapy, and classifying the mother and the baby throughout pregnancy and delivery, and to be on the safe side deciding ongoing to deliver the baby via caesarean section then instead of natural birth, and seeking to avoid childbearing sometimes when possible.

So overall, the future protection of the perinatal transmission of a variety of pathogens will be significantly reliant on future studies. To preserve children’s health, there seems to be a definite necessity to protect them against vertical transmission. The development of COVID-19, like the Zika virus, may assist to put the spotlight on this need.

Conclusion

The topic of whether COVID 19 is vertically transmitted has arisen in the contemporary situation.

Although there have also been conflicting findings on infection transmission to the foetus, the potential cannot be ruled out. There have been a few cases when the infection was transferred from the child to the infant. However, surgeons have already been able to control the condition in pregnant women while simultaneously avoiding vertical transfer in many situations.  Several new-borns recovered entirely from COVID19 infections after only a few weeks of treatment, demonstrating that the death rate is low. Doctors, on the other hand, suggest taking preventative precautions like hand hygiene, covering up, social rejection, and quarantine.