“It appears that the transmission routes do not include amniotic fluid, cord blood, or breast milk, all of which may be routes for a vertical transmission,” the study’s co-author Wei Zhang, an associate professor of preventive medicine at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine, told Healthline. However, new mums who are infected with the coronavirus will likely need to be isolated from their newborns after birth to avoid infecting them via close contact, Zhang added. As for children, the number of reported infections is remarkably low, even in China, where the COVID-19 originated. "We're seeing [about] 75,000 total cases at this point, but the literature is only reporting about 100 or so pediatric cases," Terri Lynn Stillwell, a pediatric infectious disease expert at Mott Children's Hospital at the University of Michigan explains to NPR.org. What this means, she explains, is that it is possible that many more kids are infected but don't get sick enough to seek medical treatment. It's also possible that some infected children may develop no symptoms at all. "So far, it appears that more than 80% of the [coronavirus] infections are pretty mild, no more severe than the common cold,' Cody Meissner, an infectious disease expert and professor of paediatrics at Tufts University School of Medicine, says to NPR.org. "And children appear to have even milder infections than adults." Note that this is based on preliminary data, he says.