No Evidence of Infectious SARS-CoV-2 in Human Milk

Learning Objectives:

• Understand that a risk of vertical transmission from mother to infant through human milk needs to be evaluated with hightest priority to be able to assess the safety of breastfeeding based on evidence.
• Know that despite the occasional presence of SARS-CoV-2 mRNA in human milk, human milk is not a source of active, replication-competent SARS-CoV-2 virus.
• Understand that even if human milk was contaminated with SARS-CoV-2 during pumping and handling, Holder pasteurization, which is commonly used by human milk banks, inactivates the virus in contaminated human milk.