Safety of Breastfeeding by Mothers With COVID-19: New Evidence From Israel.

* Abbreviations: COVID-19 — : coronavirus disease 2019 EBF — : exclusive breastfeeding SARS-CoV-2 — : severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 WHO — : World Health Organization Human milk is the ultimate food to promote healthy growth and development of children aged <2 years.1 Optimal breastfeeding practices, as recommended by the World Health Organization (WHO), include initiation of skin-to-skin contact with breastfeeding within 1 hour of birth, exclusive breastfeeding (EBF) for 6 months, then continued breastfeeding with appropriate complementary foods for up to 2 years and beyond.1 The WHO also recommends that mothers with suspected or confirmed coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) should be encouraged to initiate or continue to breastfeed.2 However, concerns have been raised about whether mothers with COVID-19 can transmit severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) to their infant or young child through breastfeeding or horizontally. In a case series of 53 women infected with SARS-CoV-2 and their 55 mostly breastfed infants reported in this issue of Pediatrics , Shlomai et al3 report no neonatal SARS-CoV-2 infections, … Address correspondence to Marcel Yotebieng, MD, MPH, PhD, Division of General Internal Medicine, Department of Medicine, Albert Einstein College of Medicine, 3300 Kossuth Ave, Bronx, NY 10467. E-mail: marcel.yotebieng{at}einsteinmed.org