COVID-19 during pregnancy could impact baby’s development later on

Embargoed until: Publicly released: 2022-06-10 09:45

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PHOTO: Aditya Romansa/Unsplash

Early evidence has found that babies born to mothers that had a COVID-19 infection while pregnant in 2020 were more likely to receive a neurodevelopmental diagnosis in the first year after they were born. US researchers looked at the data of almost 8000 infants - 222 of whom had mothers who tested positive - finding that this trend particularly showed up when the mother got sick in the third trimester. Most of these diagnoses were developmental disorders around motor function or speech and language. The team says follow-up studies are critical to confirm this link.

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Research JAMA, Web page

Journal/
conference: JAMA Network Open

Research:Paper

Organisation/s: Massachusetts General Hospital, Harvard Medical School, USA; Mass General Brigham, USA

Funder: This study was supported by the National Institute of Mental Health (R01MH116270 and 1R56MH115187; Dr Perlis) and the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (R01 HD100022-02S2; Dr Edlow). Conflict of Interest Disclosures: Dr Edlow reported receiving grants from Simons Foundation during the conduct of the study. Dr Perlis reported receiving consulting fees from Burrage Capital, Genomind, RID Ventures, Belle Artificial Intelligence, and Takeda; he reported receiving equity in Psy Therapeutics, Belle Artificial Intelligence, and Circular Genomics; Dr Perlis also reported receiving personal fees from Genomind Scientific Advisory Board and personal fees from Vault Health Scientific Advisory Board outside the submitted work. No other disclosures were reported.

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