Unprotected mothers and infants breastfeeding in public amenities during the COVID-19 pandemic
2020
Wang, Xue | Han, Jie | Lichtfouse, Eric | Institute of Mathematics, Statistics and Actuarial Science ; Institute of Mathematics, Statistics and Actuarial Science | Centre Européen de Recherche et d'Enseignement des Géosciences de l'Environnement (CEREGE) ; Institut de Recherche pour le Développement (IRD)-Aix Marseille Université (AMU)-Collège de France (CdF (institution))-Institut national des sciences de l'Univers (INSU - CNRS)-Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS)-Institut National de Recherche pour l’Agriculture, l’Alimentation et l’Environnement (INRAE)
International audience
Show more [+] Less [-]English. The outbreak of the coronavirus disease, named COVID-19, has quickly spread at the global scale. On July 11, 2020, there have been a total of 12,286,264 confirmed cases worldwide (WHO 2020a). Recent studies related to air pollution have reported that the novel coronavirus could survive in the ambient air for several hours and potentially transmit through aerosols, especially in enclosed indoor environments with limited social distancing and poor ventilation (Morawska and Milton 2020; Sharma et al. 2020; WHO 2020b). When breastfeeding in public amenities, mothers can wear masks or cloth face coverings to protect themselves from respirable virus carriers in the air, while their infants cannot wear any respiratory protection to avoid direct exposure to the indoor air. With respect to the airborne transmission of COVID-19, breastfeeding in public amenities therefore represents a blind spot in the current regulatory guidelines and risk mitigation efforts (CDC 2020; NHC 2020; WHO 2020c). Here we outline the common issues in the current design of lactation facilities and the use of other public amenities by breastfeeding mothers, as a timely reminder on the potential risks to breastfeeding mothers and unprotected infants during the current pandemic (Fig. 1).
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