Pre-term births in Tennessee decreased during pandemic
Statewide stay-at-home orders put in situ as Tennessee fought to regulate the spread of coronavirus last March were related to a 14% lower rate of preterm birth, consistent with a search letter published today in JAMA Pediatrics.
Preterm infants have higher morbidity and mortality risks than babies born at term.
Senior author Stephen Patrick, MD, director of the Vanderbilt Center for Child Health Policy and a neonatologist at the Monroe Carell Jr. Children's Hospital at Vanderbilt and his colleagues had observed in March that there seemed to be fewer infants than usual within the NICU at the children's hospital. along with side colleagues at the Tennessee Department of Health and therefore the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the team aimed to check if these anecdotal observations were associated with the statewide lockdown order.
The study is that the first within the US to verify the trend that more persons staying reception, essentially on forced bed rest, reduced the amount lately preterm infants (34-35 weeks).
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"Preterm birth affects 1-in-10 infants nationwide, taking a considerable toll on children, families, and communities," Patrick said. "Our study, including similar studies from Europe, provide initial evidence that COVID-19 occupy home orders were related to reductions in spontaneous preterm birth. While encouraging, we'd like to make sure other pregnancy complications, like stillbirth, didn't increase during this point period."
Statewide stay-at-home orders in Tennessee were announced on March 22 and expired on April 30. Researchers from Vanderbilt University center, the Tennessee Department of Health, and therefore the CDC collaborated to work out if the chances of preterm birth during the stay-at-home orders in Tennessee were lower as compared with an equivalent period in 2015-2019 in Tennessee.
There were 49,845 births among Tennessee residents during the study period. The pre-term birth rate during the 2020 stay-at-home order was less than rates in previous years (10.2% vs. 11.3%); late pre-term (35-36 weeks gestation) birth rates were also lower (5.8% vs. 6.5%).
"The overall decrease in preterm birth we saw during Tennessee COVID-19 Stay-at-Home Order was driven by reductions among infants born late preterm, 35-36 weeks gestation," said lead author Elizabeth Harvey, Ph.D., MPH, Maternal and Child Health Epidemiologist at CDC Division of Reproductive Health.
"Although we saw fewer infants born preterm, we also saw infants born during this point required more respiratory assistance at birth, which can suggest they were sicker and warrants further investigation," she added.
Future research could explore whether other US states observed similar reductions, Patrick said, and the way obstetric interventions for fetal and maternal complications, or lack thereof, may have contributed.
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