Coronavirus infection during pregnancy does not appear to affect infants’ brain function, but the pandemic itself may be having an impact, a study published on Tuesday in JAMA Pediatrics suggests.
Researchers in New York City tracked 255 full-term infants born during the pandemic, including 114 whose mothers had COVID-19 during pregnancy. When the babies were six months old, the researchers saw “absolutely no effect of maternal infection with SARS-CoV-2” on neurodevelopment, said Dr. Dani Dumitriu of Columbia University and New York State Psychiatric Institute.
But overall, compared with 62 infants born before the pandemic, the babies born during the health crisis had slightly lower scores on tasks involving large muscles, tasks requiring small muscle movements, and personal interactions.
