Why Have There Been Fewer Preterm Births During Confinement?
European researchers have found that fewer premature babies have been delivered during lockdowns in many countries. More rest, sleep, and family care may have helped you.
Since the coronavirus has been on the streets, a mystery runs through the neonatal intensive care units of many countries: where are the premature babies? Studies conducted in Denmark, Ireland, the United States, and other countries show that the number of preterm births has dropped dramatically during the spring of COVID-19.
Two teams of researchers from Ireland and Denmark, without communicating with each other, began to study the matter because they both detected a drop in preterm births, especially the earliest and most dangerous cases, which practically collapsed. By sharing their numbers, doctors in other countries confirmed they were seeing the same phenomenon, The New York Times reports .
The number of premature babies has fallen between 25 and 90 percent
One of these doctors was Roy Philip, a neonatologist at the University of Limerick Maternity Hospital in Ireland, who when he arrived from his vacation on March 12 wondered why he had not run out of the formula they use to feed babies. premature Hospital staff told her that not a single preterm had been born during her month of vacation.
Philip decided to compare births between January and April from 2001 to this 2020 and found that premature births had dropped by 25%. In a period when at least three very low birth weight babies should have been born, this year there were none. And the trend has continued throughout May and June.
Dr. Michael Christiansen and his colleagues at the Statens Serum Institut in Copenhagen had the same concern. They compared data on newborns across the country from March 12 to April 14 with the same period in the previous five years. The number of premature babies had fallen by no less than 90%.
Similar reports have been produced from Canada to Australia, although in some countries it appears that there have been no changes, which only adds unknowns. In Spain, the pediatrician and neonatologist Hector Boix, Head of the Pediatric Service at Quirón Salud de Barcelona, affirms that during confinement “there has been less of everything.”
Confinement has allowed pregnant women more rest
For now, doctors only dare to speculate, using common sense, about what has happened. Some suggest that the lockdown has allowed women to stay at home, reducing stress levels caused by commuting and work. If this were true, this type of stress is more damaging to a woman than the burden that the COVID-19 pandemic has caused us all.
Doctors add that pregnant women have slept more and received more support from their families during confinement. Women may also have avoided infections that cause preterm labor. A flu, for example, can help it. Air pollution has also been reduced and is also associated with premature births.
Dr. Boix agrees that it is necessary to study “whether forced rest due to confinement has had something to do with it.”
Ongoing studies could lead to the conclusion that pregnant women need more rest. Perhaps one should not wait until the last minute to grant maternity leave.
A pregnancy lasts about 40 weeks and any delivery before 37 weeks is considered premature. Births less than 32 weeks are especially dangerous because they are associated with vision and hearing problems, cerebral palsy, and even death.
