Children and COVID-19 Research Library

The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic caused a global crisis, creating the most challenging times faced by any country. The pandemic created a situation that shocked the whole world. It led to a condition of fear, and the ones to take the major hit were the vulnerable groups: children, pregnant women, and the elderly, as well as those belonging to low socio-economic groups who lost their source of daily income. It increased the pressure on already burdened healthcare and information systems and led to a situation where the well-being of even children and pregnant women could not be maintained. COVID-19 increased the risk of undernutrition in children. Though children are observed to be less affected by the virus, they are the hidden victims of the pandemic in terms of falling prey to undernutrition. Child undernutrition can also be linked to maternal malnutrition, starting from the preconception period through the postpartum period. The situation arose due to the rapid steps of mitigation taken to tackle the pandemic, leading to decreased food security, healthcare, and education. Maternal undernutrition leads to complications for the mother during childbirth and has long-term effects on both. It can lead to low birth weight (LBW) babies, postpartum complications, chronic child undernourishment, and even increased maternal and child mortality and morbidity. Because of the pandemic's disruption of immunization facilities, it appears that even preventable childhood diseases will worsen in the coming years. In these post-COVID-19 times, it has become necessary to take measures to improve the overall health status of the population, with special regard to these vulnerable groups. Proper maternal and child health should be targeted at community levels by introducing interventions that prioritize antenatal and postnatal care, nutritional education, immunization of both mother and child, and proper health and sanitation practices. The purpose of this narrative review is to create awareness about the child survival crisis that may occur in the coming years due to undernutrition and the failure of immunization.

Prenatal care reduces many of the negative effects of pregnancy, such as prematurity, low birth weight and detection of abnormalities with the mother and child, serving as a learning moment for the woman and her family. However, the Covid-19 scenario brought an adaptation in this monitoring, bringing a more suitable prenatal care for the moment with fewer face-to-face visits. This work was a cross-sectional retrospective study with a quantitative approach, with the purpose of evaluating the behavior of pregnant women in the face of the impact of the COVID19 pandemic on adherence to prenatal consultations, in the period 2019-2020 through a search carried out in the secondary database available on the Department of Informatics of the Unified Health System (DATASUS). The databases included in this study were obtained from the DATASUS electronic portal, TABNET table of all monthly prenatal consultations in the 2019-2020 period of the Regional Health Care Networks (RRAS 10). It is important to highlight the work of health professionals who are directly involved in facing this pandemic as they had to deal with the risk group, their fears and insecurities in the context of COVID19. It is concluded that there was no significant impact on the number of prenatal consultations in the central west region of são paulo (SP) during the pandemic period, and it may have been favored by the high HDI (0.05) of the region as well as the efficiency of the strategies adopted by the Health units facing the challenge.

The impact of maternal SARS-CoV-2 infection remains unclear. This study evaluated the risk of maternal SARS-CoV-2 infection on birth outcomes and how this is modulated by the pregnancy trimester in which the infection occurs. It also developed models to predict gestational age at delivery for people following a SARS-CoV-2 infection during pregnancy. This is a retrospective cohort study of the impact of maternal SARS-CoV-2 infection on birth outcomes. It used clinical data from Providence St Joseph Health electronic health records for pregnant people who delivered in the USA at the Providence, Swedish, or Kadlec sites in Alaska, California, Montana, Oregon, or Washington. The SARS-CoV-2 positive cohort included people who had a positive SARS-CoV-2 PCR-based test during pregnancy, subdivided by trimester of infection. No one in this cohort had been vaccinated for COVID-19 at time of infection.

Conflicting reports of increases and decreases in rates of preterm birth (PTB) and stillbirth in the general population during the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic have surfaced. The objective of this study was to conduct a living systematic review and meta-analyses of studies reporting pregnancy and neonatal outcomes by comparing the pandemic and pre-pandemic periods. PubMed and Embase databases and reference lists of articles published up until November 20, 2021, and included English language studies that compared outcomes between the COVID-19 pandemic time period with pre-pandemic time periods were searched. Risk of bias was assessed using the Newcastle-Ottawa scale.

While this reduced-visit prenatal care model during the COVID-19 pandemic is well-intentioned, there is still a lack of relevant evidence to prove its effectiveness. Therefore, in order to provide new evidence-based medical evidence for clinical treatment, this study undertook a systematic review and meta-analysis to assess the efficacy of reduced-visit prenatal care model during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Our understanding of how the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic has impacted decision-making for women planning to conceive is unclear. This paper aimed to investigate how the COVID-19 pandemic has influenced pregnancy planning behaviors. An online questionnaire of closed- and open-ended questions was utilized to capture pregnancy planning behaviors and reported behavioral changes during the COVID-19 pandemic in women planning pregnancy between January and July 2020. Closed-ended questions were analyzed quantitatively, and thematic framework analysis was utilized for open-ended responses.

Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) has spread rapidly across the world. Given the sharply increased infection rate, the number of pregnant women and children with COVID-19 is correspondingly on the rise. SARS-CoV-2 infection is transmitted through droplets; though hypothesized, other transmission routes have not been confirmed. As of now, it remains unclear whether and how SARS-CoV-2 can possibly be transmitted from the mother to the fetus. This study examines the medical records of 30 neonates born to women with COVID-19, the objective being to provide documented information on maternal-child transmission and infant outcomes.

The COVID-19 pandemic has required rapid and radical changes to the way maternity care is provided in many nations across the world. Midwives provide care to childbearing women across the continuum and are key members of the maternity workforce in Australia. This paper aims to explore and describe midwives’ experiences of providing maternity care during the COVID-19 pandemic in Australia.

From 2014 to 2016, the largest Ebola outbreak in history threatened Sierra Leone and its neighbouring countries, Guinea and Liberia. The Ebola outbreak impacted pregnant adolescent girl’s access to prenatal care during the pandemic. The aim of this study is to understand health-seeking behaviour among adolescent mothers who were pregnant during the Ebola epidemic in Waterloo, Sierra Leone

Several studies have reported the susceptibility of pregnant women to emotional instability and stress. Thus, pregnancy may be a risk factor that could deepen the already negative effects of the current COVID-19 pandemic. Therefore, the aim of this study is to analyze longitudinally the psychopathological consequences of the pandemic in pregnant women, and to explore differences with non-pregnant women. The participants in this study were 102 pregnant women, and a control group of 102 non-pregnant women (most of them reported having university studies and little financial impact from the pandemic). 

Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), resulting from infection with severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), can affect pregnant women. Their newborns are at a higher risk of prematurity and early separation from their mothers, who may subsequently require intensive care for their own health. Although neonates born of mothers infected with SARS-CoV-2 during pregnancy are seemingly vulnerable to infection, studies have found that they were not at a high risk for severe infection and were very rarely affected by COVID-19. The presence of virus by real-time reverse transcriptase polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) has been reported in newborns before H 12 of life. In addition, antiviral immunoglobulin M has been detected in newborns at birth, suggesting that mother-to-infant viral transmission may occur. To date, however, only one case of vertical transmission has been clearly demonstrated. In several cases of early neonatal infection, postnatal contamination cannot be excluded. Moreover, only one case report found that the virus could pass from mother to infant through the mother’s breast milk.

This study aims to examine pregnancy and birth planning during COVID-19 and the effects of a tele- education offered to pregnant women for this planning process on prenatal distress and pregnancy-related anxiety. The population of this quasi-experimental study was composed of pregnant women who applied for the antenatal education class of a public hospital in the east of Turkey during their past prenatal follow-ups and wrote their contact details in the registration book to participate in group trainings. The sample of the study consisted of a total of 96 pregnant women, including 48 in the experiment and 48 in the control groups, who were selected using power analysis and non-probability random sampling method.

Prenatal micronutrients in pregnant women’s diets, including supplements, have an essential role in fetal brain development and may reduce the risk of mental disorders in offspring. Maternal dietary supplementation of nutrients is a benign and inexpensive intervention in pregnancy to prevent life‐long disability from mental illness.