Pandemic babies risk more developmental delays, but don’t blame virus, researchers say

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COVID-19 during pregnancy surprisingly did not increase babies’ risk of neurodevelopmental delay, although those born during the pandemic have been associated with greater neurodevelopmental delays than those born before the pandemic, according to a recent JAMA Pediatrics study.

Columbia University Irving Medical Center established a prospective cohort study called the COVID-19 Mother Baby Outcomes (COMBO) Initiative in the spring of 2020 to study associations between exposure to the virus while the baby is still in the mother’s womb and the well-being of the baby.

Researchers studied a cohort of infants who were exposed to COVID-19 during pregnancy and compared them to a control group of similar gestational age at birth, birthday, gender, and method of delivery who have not been exposed to the virus.

Whether or not children should be forced to wear masks has been a polarizing topic throughout the COVID-19 pandemic.

“Infants born to mothers who have viral infections during pregnancy have a higher risk of neurodevelopmental deficits, so we thought we would find changes in the neurodevelopment of babies whose mothers had COVID during pregnancy,” said the Principal Investigator, Dr Dani Dumitriu.

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“We were surprised to find absolutely no signal to suggest that exposure to COVID while in the womb was linked to neurodevelopmental deficits. On the contrary, being in the womb of a mother facing the pandemic was associated with slightly lower scores. inferior in areas such as motor and social skills, “added Dumitriu, assistant professor of pediatrics and psychiatry at Columbia University.

A young girl wears a face mask to protect herself from COVID-19.

Researchers studied 255 babies born during the pandemic in 2020, 45% of whom were exposed to the virus (meaning the mother had been infected during pregnancy), comparing child development scores among these babies. with 62 who gave birth before the pandemic (therefore not exposed to the virus).

The study found that babies born during the 2020 pandemic, whether or not they were exposed to the virus during pregnancy, performed lower in gross motor skills, fine motor skills and problem solving compared to those born before the pandemic.

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The study has several limitations, most notably it was carried out at a single site in New York when COVID-19 was the epicenter at the time (so this makes generalization difficult), it only studied development models up to 6 months and assessments of infant neurodevelopment were subjective, not objective, as they were reported by parents.

It is well established that viral disease during pregnancy can increase the risk of neurodevelopmental delays by activating the immune system, which in turn influences brain development, according to a recent report.

Courtney Martin, left, a nurse at the University of Washington Medical Center, gives the first injection of the Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine to Ani Hahn, 7, on Tuesday, November 9, 2021, in Seattle. (AP Photo / Ted S. Warren)

And other studies have shown that COVID-19 is associated with health and birth complications for pregnant women, including one published last October that showed babies born to pregnant mothers with COVID-19 were at greater risk. high fetal growth and low birth weight, in part due to the increased risk of preterm birth, the report adds.

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“With millions of infants potentially exposed to COVID in utero, and even more mothers simply living under the stress of the pandemic, it is essential to understand the neurodevelopmental effects of the pandemic on future generations,” said Dumitriu.

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