Infants born to mothers who experienced severe or critical COVID-19 during pregnancy are 10 times more likely to develop a neurodevelopmental delay in their first three years of life, according to new research. During the COVID-19 pandemic, researchers assessed children born to mothers with SARS-CoV-2 infection during pregnancy and compared neurodevelopmental outcomes to unexposed children born before the pandemic in Los Angeles and Rio De Janeiro, Brazil. Neurodevelopmental testing was performed on 300 children in two groups: 172 children aged 5 to 30 months exposed to COVID-19 between April 2020 and December 2022, and 128 children aged 6 to 38 months in a control group who were not exposed.
The Bayley-III assessment examines five key developmental domains such as cognition, language, social-emotional, motor, and adaptive behavior. The ASQ is a screening tool used by physicians and educators to help identify a developmental delay (DD) and progress in children between birth and age 6 based on survey information provided by parents. Of the 172 exposed children, 97 were born to mothers in Los Angeles, and 75 were from Brazil.
According to the study, 12 of 128 children (9.4 percent) in the COVID-19-exposed group had a developmental delay compared to only 2 of 128 children (1.6 percent) in the pre-pandemic control group from the same environment—a “statistically significant” finding.
Among 44 children exposed to COVID-19 who completed both assessments, eight had a developme.