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Children and COVID-19 Research Library

UNICEF Innocenti's curated library of COVID-19 + Children research

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31 - 45 of 61
Difficulties experienced in providing care of infants in the neonatal intensive care unit during COVID-19

AUTHOR(S)
Melike Yavas Celık; Selver Guler

Published: December 2021   Journal: Early Child Development and Care
In this study, it was aimed to determine the difficulties in receiving care for infants who are in neonatal intensive care during the pandemic process. In this phenomenological study, interviews were conducted with semi-structured questions with the participants. While collecting the data, both observation and interview techniques were used. The situations that prevent getting care from nurses are as follows. The inability to establish skin-to-skin contact with the infant, the problems caused by the equipment that nurses have to wear, and the fear of COVID-19. Conditions that prevent receiving care from the mother are as follows: removal of family visits, interruption of kangaroo care, failure to initiate breastfeeding. As a result, infants faced many difficulties in receiving care during the pandemic period and their care could not be applied properly and regularly.
The impact of maternal anxiety on early child development during the COVID-19 pandemic

AUTHOR(S)
Ljiljana Jeličić; Mirjana Sovilj; Ivana Bogavac (et al.)

Published: December 2021   Journal: Frontiers in Psychology

Maternal prenatal anxiety is among important public health issues as it may affect child development. However, there are not enough studies to examine the impact of a mother's anxiety on the child's early development, especially up to 1 year. The present prospective cohort study aimed to examine whether maternal trait anxiety, perceived social support, and COVID-19 related fear impacted speech-language, sensory-motor, and socio-emotional development in 12 months old Serbian infants during the COVID-19 pandemic. This follow-up study included 142 pregnant women (Time 1) and their children at 12 months (Time 2). Antenatal maternal anxiety and children's development were examined. Maternal anxiety was assessed using the State-Trait Anxiety Inventory (STAI). Child speech-language, sensory-motor, and socio-emotional development were assessed using the developmental scale in the form of an online questionnaire that examined the early psychophysiological child development. Information on socioeconomic factors, child and maternal demographics, clinical factors, and perceived fear of COVID-19 viral infection were collected. Multivariable General Linear Model analysis was conducted, adjusted for demographic, clinical, and coronavirus prenatal experiences, maternal prenatal anxiety levels, perceived social support, speech-language, motor skills, and cognitive and socio-emotional development at the infants' age of 12 months.

COVID-19 and early childhood development in low- and middle-income countries: a research roundup

AUTHOR(S)
Kristy Hackett; Kerrie Proulx; Shekufeh Zonji

Institution: Early Childhood Development Action Network
Published: December 2021

The global response to Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) has changed daily life in many ways for children, families, and care providers. A sharp increase in research worldwide on COVID-19 and its impacts on children’s development and wellbeing has been seen. This research roundup, describes the nature and scope of the existing early childhood development (ECD) evidence related to components of nurturing care for young children, including health, nutrition, child protection, opportunities for learning, and responsive caregiving.

Young children’s play during a time of social distancing

AUTHOR(S)
Courtney Beers Dewhirst; Casey Cascio; Erin M. Casey

Published: October 2021   Journal: Early Child Development and Care
Through a 48-item questionnaire shared via social media, 546 participants from 47 American States reported on their children’s (ages 0–8) play activities during early social distancing efforts as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. Descriptive and inferential statistics were used for data analysis. Results from the questionnaire indicate participants took social distancing guidelines seriously by keeping children at home and away from other children during the period of social distancing, thus affecting play behaviours. The study’s findings are significant in that they document some parents’ perspectives of their children’s play during a unique period in American history.
Young children’s play during a time of social distancing

AUTHOR(S)
Courtney Beers Dewhirst; Casey Cascio; Erin M. Casey

Published: October 2021   Journal: Early Child Development and Care
Through a 48-item questionnaire shared via social media, 546 participants from 47 American States reported on their children’s (ages 0–8) play activities during early social distancing efforts as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. Descriptive and inferential statistics were used for data analysis. Results from the questionnaire indicate participants took social distancing guidelines seriously by keeping children at home and away from other children during the period of social distancing, thus affecting play behaviours. The study’s findings are significant in that they document some parents’ perspectives of their children’s play during a unique period in American history. The authors discuss implications for parent and child play behaviours including the need for more unstructured play time, realities of parents working from home with children present, and the effects of children having a lack of access to peers to play with for sociodramatic and symbolic play.
Love and peace across generations: biobehavioral systems and global partnerships

AUTHOR(S)
James F. Leckman; Liliana Angelica Ponguta; Gabriela Pavarini (et al.)

Published: October 2021   Journal: Comprehensive Psychoneuroendocrinology
Children's environments - especially relationships with caregivers - sculpt not only developing brains but also multiple bio-behavioral systems that influence long-term cognitive and socioemotional outcomes, including the ability to empathize with others and interact in prosocial and peaceful ways. This speaks to the importance of investing resources in effective and timely programs that work to enhance early childhood development (ECD) and, by extension, reach communities at-scale. Given the limited resources currently devoted to ECD services, and the devastating impact of COVID-19 on children and communities, there is a clear need to spur government leaders and policymakers to further invest in ECD and related issues including gender and racial equity. This essay offers concrete examples of scholarly paradigms and leadership efforts that focus on child development to build a peaceful, equitable, just, and sustainable world.
Breastfeeding during the Covid-19 pandemic

AUTHOR(S)
J. P. Dadhich; Nupur Bidla

Published: September 2021   Journal: Journal of Neonatology
The COVID-19 pandemic has posed a serious challenge to the lactating women to practice optimal infant and young child feeding. Although international and national agencies developed appropriate evidence-based guidelines early in the pandemic, availability of this information to the mothers and their caregivers needs to be enhanced. This becomes important in view of apprehension about the risk of a decline in breastfeeding practices during the pandemic due to various factors. Any decrease in the breastfeeding rates may lead to increased childhood morbidity, mortality, and malnutrition. This article provides a glimpse of available evidence-based guidelines on breastfeeding by Covid-19 positive mothers and attempts by the baby food industry to exploit the situation by promoting their products. The article also deals with infection prevention and control measures to be observed by the mother while caring and breastfeeding her baby and other action required to protect breastfeeding from commercial influence.
The impact of COVID-19 on early childhood reading practices

AUTHOR(S)
Deborah L. Wheeler; Jennifer C. Hill

Published: September 2021   Journal: Journal of Early Childhood Literacy
COVID-19 has changed the daily lives of families, impacted on work, social interactions, and mental health. Since spring 2020, parents have been working from home and children have been home from daycare and school. Parents are experiencing stress in an attempt to satisfy the demands of work, family, and COVID-19 concerns. Due to the fact that children have been home from daycare and school, parents have the sole responsibility of caring for and teaching their children until schools are able to fully and effectively meet the needs of educating students in an adapted format. Research provides a wealth of information documenting the advantages of parents reading to their children. Children benefit from read-alouds with parental interaction, and these benefits include an increase in oral language skills, reading comprehension, vocabulary, and an increase in motivation to read. The purpose of this study is to answer two questions: (1) Since parents were home more often with their children, were parents spending more quality time reading to their two-to four-year-old children? This can be defined as reading developmentally appropriate books to their children with their undivided attention; and (2) Since parents were home more often with their two-to four-year-old children, were parents reading more to their young children? Parents of pre-kindergarten students were surveyed to determine the answers to these questions.
Effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on caregiver mental health and the child caregiving environment in a low-resource, rural context

AUTHOR(S)
Helen O. Pitchik; Fahmida Tofail; Fahmida Akter (et al.)

Published: September 2021   Journal: Child Development
Early child development has been influenced directly and indirectly by the COVID-19 pandemic, and these effects are exacerbated in contexts of poverty. This study estimates effects of the pandemic and subsequent population lockdowns on mental health, caregiving practices, and freedom of movement among female caregivers of children 6–27 months (50% female), in rural Bangladesh. A cohort (N = 517) was assessed before and during the pandemic (May–June, 2019 and July–September, 2020). Caregivers who experienced more food insecurity and financial loss during the pandemic reported larger increases in depressive symptoms (0.26 SD, 95% CI 0.08–0.44; 0.21 SD, 0.04–0.40) compared to less affected caregivers. Stimulating caregiving and freedom of movement results were inconsistent. Increases in depressive symptoms during the pandemic may have consequences for child development.
Lockdown babies: Birth and new parenting experiences during the 2020 Covid-19 lockdown in South Africa, a cross-sectional study

AUTHOR(S)
Elise Farley; Amanda Edwards; Emma Numanoglu (et al.)

Published: September 2021   Journal: Women and Birth

Perceived birth experiences of parents can have a lasting impact on children. This study explored the birth and new parenting experiences of South African parents in 2020 during the Covid-19 lockdown. It was a cross-sectional online survey with consenting parents of babies born in South Africa during 2020. Factors associated with negative birth emotions and probable depression were estimated using logistic regression.

An online cross-sectional survey of complementary feeding practices during the COVID-19 restrictions in Poland

AUTHOR(S)
Andrea Horvath; Agata Stróżyk; Piotr Dziechciarz (et al.)

Published: September 2021   Journal: Nutrients
This cross-sectional online survey performed in Poland aimed to improve understanding of how COVID-19 pandemic restrictions affected complementary feeding practices among parents of infants aged 4 to 12 months. Self-selected parents were recruited through the internet. The anonymous questionnaire was opened during two intervals during COVID-19 restrictions. The primary outcome was an assessment of sources of information and infant feeding practices in the context of COVID-19 restrictions. Data from 6934 responders (92.2% mothers) were analyzed.
Socioeconomic inequalities in low birth weight risk before and during the COVID-19 pandemic in Argentina: a cross-sectional study

AUTHOR(S)
Eduardo Cuestas; Martha E. Gómez-Flores; María D. Charras (et al.)

Published: August 2021   Journal: The Lancet Regional Health - Americas

The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic may have exacerbated existing socioeconomic inequalities in health. In Argentina, public hospitals serve the poorest uninsured segment of the population, while private hospitals serve patients with health insurance. This study aimed to assess whether socioeconomic inequalities in low birth weight (LBW) risk changed during the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic. This multicenter cross-sectional study included 15929 infants. A difference-in-difference (DID) analysis of socioeconomic inequalities between public and private hospitals in LBW risk in a pandemic cohort (March 20 to July 19, 2020) was compared with a prepandemic cohort (March 20 to July 19, 2019) by using medical records obtained from ten hospitals.

Neonatal care during the COVID-19 pandemic - a global survey of parents’ experiences regarding infant and family-centred developmental care

AUTHOR(S)
Johanna Kostenzer; Julia Hoffmann; Charlotte von Rosenstiel-Pulver (et al.)

Published: August 2021   Journal: EClinicalMedicine
The COVID-19 pandemic restrictions affect provision and quality of neonatal care. This global study explores parents’ experiences regarding the impact of the restrictions on key characteristics of infant and family-centred developmental care (IFCDC) during the first year of the pandemic. For this cross-sectional study, a pre-tested online survey with 52 questions and translated into 23 languages was used to collect data between August and November 2020. Parents of sick or preterm infants born during the pandemic and receiving special/intensive care were eligible for participation. Data analysis included descriptive statistics and statistical testing based on different levels of restrictive measures.
Young children and the pandemic: UNICEF early childhood COVID-19 response in East Asia and the Pacific
Institution: *UNICEF
Published: July 2021

At the height of nationwide lockdowns due to the COVID-19 pandemic, more than 150 million children younger than 5 years in East Asia and the Pacific were affected. The pandemic brought service provision for young children in many of the 27 countries supported by UNICEF programmes that promote nurturing care and are essential to their optimal development to a standstill. Yet, even before the pandemic, more than 42 million children in the region were at risk of not reaching their developmental potential. Using the latest available evidence, this report summarizes the impact of the pandemic on services essential for young children’s development: For example, that the number of children younger than 5 years visiting community health centres in Viet Nam dropped by 48 per cent; that in Indonesia, more than 50 per cent of households reported not being able to meet their family’s nutritional needs; or that in the Philippines, more than 80 per cent of households experienced a decrease in their household income. Households facing disadvantages before COVID-19 – those with young children, those living in rural and remote areas and low-income households – are in most cases more disproportionally affected by the pandemic.

Early childhood educators’ wellbeing during the COVID-19 pandemic

AUTHOR(S)
Patricia Eadie; Penny Levickis; Lisa Murray

Published: May 2021   Journal: Early Childhood Education Journal
The importance of Early Childhood (EC) educators’ wellbeing has been brought into sharp focus during the COVID-19 pandemic, as educators have navigated numerous additional stressors while providing education and care services for some children and ongoing support for many others learning at home. This study aimed to explore the impact of the pandemic on EC educators’ wellbeing and educator-child relationships, as growing evidence shows the infuence of these factors on children’s developmental outcomes.
31 - 45 of 61

UNICEF Innocenti's Children and COVID-19 Library is a database collecting research from around the world on COVID-19 and its impacts on children and adolescents.

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Check our quarterly thematic digests on children and COVID-19

Each quarterly thematic digest features the latest evidence drawn from the Children and COVID-19 Research Library on a particular topic of interest.
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COVID-19 & Children: Rapid Research Response

UNICEF Innocenti is mobilizing a rapid research response in line with UNICEF’s global response to the COVID-19 crisis. The initiatives we’ve begun will provide the broad range of evidence needed to inform our work to scale up rapid assessment, develop urgent mitigating strategies in programming and advocacy, and preparation of interventions to respond to the medium and longer-term consequences of the COVID-19 crisis. The research projects cover a rapid review of evidence, education analysis, and social and economic policies.