In a research involving 221 pregnant patients infected with COVID-19, the UCLA Medical Center System found that 34 newborns had respiratory distress syndrome (RD).

The most common diagnosis among the newborns was respiratory distress syndrome, which was followed by transient tachypnea (abnormally rapid breathing) and various illnesses.

The group also observed that the study's exposed infants had an exceptionally high incidence of RD—17%—while the overall incidence of RD in unexposed neonates varies from 5.2% to 6.4%.

When comparing kids born to vaccinated mothers to those born to unvaccinated mothers, the odds ratio of RD was 3.06 (95% confidence interval, 1.08 to 10.21).

However, there were a few limitations of the study, including that the mothers and their babies were recruited from a large medical center that typically handles the sickest patients, which they said could skew the findings toward more severe illness than those found in the general population

The key message from the study was that pregnant women should be encouraged to receive mRNA COVID-19 vaccines, regardless of history of prior COVID-19 infection,