Lockdown babies 'slower to hit key milestones'

The so-called “pandemic babies” were significantly less likely to have achieved three key social communication benchmarks by the time they turned one, based on parental observations.

These were: speaking one definite and meaningful word; waving bye bye; and pointing.

The findings are published online today in the BMJ journal, Archives of Disease in Childhood.

The researchers, from the Royal College of Surgeons Ireland and University College Cork, drew comparisons with previous evidence of developmental delays among infants who spent their early life in institutional care to explain why there may have been a “temporal relationship between the pandemic period and infant development”.

READ MORE: Vaccines ruled out in Scotland neonatal death spike - but experts admit to never checking whether mothers had had the jag 

They add: “Stringent lockdown, used to control the Covid-19 pandemic, has led to babies and their families spending more time at home than babies from previous years.

“We recently demonstrated that families of babies in the CORAL [Covid lockdown] cohort had a median of one social contact outside the home at birth, increasing to four when the babies reached six months of age.

“This may have impacted on parents’ experience of raising a child during the pandemic, as many parents noted that they were isolated.

“In addition, we found that social isolation restrictions lead to 25 per cent of infants not having met a child their own age by their first birthday, which will have led to a reduction in social peer interaction.

“Because of lockdown measures, it is likely that Covid-19 era babies heard a narrower repertoire of language and saw fewer unmasked faces speaking to them.”

READ MORE: Major reduction in Covid-related mortality among kidney transplant and dialysis patients 

The researchers said it remains “unclear” what impact mask wearing and limited contacts will have on these babies speech development longer term, noting:”The development of language in babies is complex, with younger babies fixating on the eyes of carers during interactions while babies from six months of age tend to shift their gaze from the eyes to the mouth.”

Top: breakdown of Covid vs historical babies by birthweight, sex etc; Above: Key milestones reached by 12 months (Source: BMJ, Archives of Disease in Childhood, Byrne et al) (Image: BMJ)

The researchers suggest that restrictions on geographical movement and social mixing during Covid mean developing infants may have had less stimulation.

They write: “As babies spent most of the lockdown in their familiar home neighbourhood, they were less likely to encounter new items of interest which might prompt pointing.

“These findings may also be linked to one or both parents (due to home working) and siblings (out of school and day care) being in close proximity and anticipating babies’ needs before the need for pointing arises.

“There was also a reduction in the babies’ ability to wave bye-bye which is likely due to a reduction in number of opportunities where babies can learn to wave bye-bye due to reduced social contacts.

“However, it is worth noting that the overall relative risk reductions in this study are small and it is hoped that these infants will catch up with their pre-pandemic peers quickly once restrictions are lifted.”

The largest statistically significant difference was found in relation to having spoken at least one definite and meaningful word, which was achieved by just over 89.3% of babies in the historic cohort compared to 76.6% of those in the pandemic group.