Pandemic Babies Scored Lower on Neurodevelopmental Screeners Than Their Predecessors

Birth during the COVID-19 pandemic, but not in utero exposure to maternal SARS-CoV-2 infection, is associated with lower scores on several neurodevelopment screener subdomains at age 6 months, according to a study published in JAMA Pediatrics.

“To our knowledge, our analysis is the first to examine this association and, contrary to the proposed hypothesis, we did not find an association between maternal SARS-CoV-2 infection status, timing, or severity and infant neurodevelopment at age 6 months as measured using a standardized screener,” wrote corresponding author Dani Dumitriu, MD, PhD, Columbia University Irving Medical Center, and coauthors.

“However, infants born during the pandemic, regardless of maternal SARS-CoV-2 status, scored significantly lower on the gross motor, fine motor, and personal-social subdomains…compared with a historical cohort of infants born at the same institution.”

Related: Prenatal Exposure to Antiseizure Medications May Increase Risk of Autism and Intellectual Disability

Researchers analyzed data on the Ages & Stages Questionnaire, 3rd Edition (ASQ-3), at age 6 months for 255 infants born between March and December 2020. While in utero, 114 of the infants were exposed to maternal SARS-CoV-2 infection, while 141 had no exposure.

According to the study, in utero exposure to maternal SARS-CoV-2 infection was not linked with significant differences on any of the screener’s 5 subdomains (communication, gross motor, fine motor, problem-solving, and personal-social skills), regardless of the timing of infection or the severity of symptoms.

For a secondary analysis, researchers pooled ASQ-3 data for all babies in the pandemic cohort with no neonatal intensive care unit admissions and compared them with a cohort born before the pandemic. Infants born during the pandemic scored an average 5.63 points lower on the gross motor subdomain, 6.61 points lower on the fine motor subdomain, and 3.71 points lower on the personal-social subdomain than the historical cohort.

Researchers suspect that COVID-19–related stress could be an underlying mechanism behind the neurodevelopmental differences.

“These early findings,” they advised, “support the need for long-term monitoring of children born during the COVID-19 pandemic.”

Reference

Shuffrey LC, Firestein MR, Kyle MH, et al. Association of birth during the COVID-19 pandemic with neurodevelopmental status at 6 months in infants with and without in utero exposure to maternal SARS-CoV-2 infection. JAMA Pediatr. 2022;176(6):e215563. doi: 10.1001/jamapediatrics.2021.5563