In 10 seconds? Infants born during the COVID-19 pandemic scored lower on neurodevelopmental tests, raising wariness about the neurodevelopment of COVID-19 generation babies.
Is this about COVID-19 affected babies or ones born during the pandemic? It’s about both. Scientists compared neurodevelopmental test scores of 62 infants born before the pandemic (historical cohort) to 255 pandemic babies, of which 114 were born to mothers who had COVID-19 during pregnancy. They did this to find out how the pandemic impacted the brain development of the COVID-19 generation of babies. The pandemic babies scored significantly lower mean scores for gross motor, fine motor, and personal-social skills compared to the historical cohort (adjusted values: -5.63, -6.61, and -3.71 respectively). And here is the interesting bit about 'COVID babies’: maternal exposure to the coronavirus during pregnancy had no negative impact compared to non-exposed babies in the pandemic group. In other words, babies born to mothers who had COVID-19 and to those who did not get sick during the pandemic produced similar scores.
