experts say early childhood Their brains absorb every positive and negative interaction and experience to build neural connections that will serve them for the rest of their lives.
Of the cohort of “lockdown babies,” “the first year of life was very different from pre-pandemic babies,” said the study’s first author and a pediatric neurologist at the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland. Susan Byrne told Washington.
But she and the other authors of this study have one message for parents. Don’t worry too much. “Babies are resilient and curious by nature,” they note, and with the right support they are likely to bounce back.
While the pandemic isn’t over yet and experts say it could take years to fully grasp the impact on children, parents around the world are beginning to see the difference their babies in lockdown will make. I’m starting to report that I’ve noticed.
Britain was in lockdown when 33-year-old Chi Lam gave birth to her first child, Adriana, in April 2020.most people not allowed to leave the house Without “reasonable excuses”. Her parents and in-laws who were in Hong Kong were also unable to visit because Hong Kong closed its borders.
as a result, For the first few months of Adriana’s life, it was “just the three of us,” Lam told The Post. There were no play dates or visits for her family and friends, and Adriana didn’t get regular contact with children her age until she was one year old.
Lam believes the prolonged isolation has had some effect on her daughter Adriana.At her two-year checkup, doctors told Lam that Adriana’s gross motor skills were “weak.” Because of the pandemic, she “thinks it was only when she turned 1 that we let her play in the park because we thought it was unsafe,” Lam said. , was also easily startled by loud sounds such as the exhaust of a motorcycle.
It’s hard to work out how specific this is to Adriana and how much it ties into the anomalous situation of the first year of life, Lamb says. However, her observation research result Beginning to suggest that lockdowns and pandemics have affected children.
Irish studyPublished this month in the British Medical Journal, researchers tracked more than 1,600 babies born in Ireland between 2008 and 2011 as part of a larger study evaluating their development over time. We compared the responses of parents to data collected in infants of
there were some small but important difference between two groups. Fewer babies in this study were able to wave goodbye — 87.7% compared to 94.4% pointed to objects around them — 83.8% compared to 92.8% — were able to say at least one meaningful word — 76.6% compared to 89.3% — at 12 months, according to parents. However, they were more likely than their pre-pandemic peers to be able to crawl at age 1. In his six other categories, the researchers found no meaningful differences.
Observational studies can identify differences, but they cannot reveal the reasons for the differences. However, the authors of the Irish study have several theories.
They suggest that babies in lockdown cohorts may have had fewer visitors and fewer opportunities to learn to wave goodbye. , may have barely seen the object they wanted to point to. .
Conversely, babies during lockdown may have learned to crawl faster because they spent more time playing on the floor at home “rather than leaving the house in a car or stroller.”
“The jury is still very inconclusive about how this pandemic will affect this generation,” said Dani, an assistant professor of pediatrics at Columbia University who was not involved in the Irish study. Dumitriu told the Post.
Dumitriu, co-author of another book study For babies born in 2020, we characterized the findings as encouraging. “They haven’t found major developmental delays in the same way that we haven’t.”
This peer-reviewed study has some limitations. It relies on the parents’ observations of their children, which may be flawed or imperfect. There were demographic differences in the pre-pandemic and post-pandemic baby populations, and in each case, parents were asked to assess their child’s development “slightly differently.”
According to the authors and other experts, what is needed is a large study that follows infants over time and measures development in a standardized manner, known as a longitudinal cohort study. increase. The authors of this study used a standardized battery of developmental questionnaires to assess a cohort of locked-down babies when they turned 2 years old, and hope to publish the findings under investigation in a follow-up paper. thinking about.
In the meantime, the authors of the study say most babies, with the right support, will be able to overcome the delays caused by the pandemic. It called for more resources to be provided to families of downed babies, especially those most at risk, to track those babies long-term to make sure there are no long-term delays. “As soon as we notice a delay, we can intervene and get the child back on track,” explains Dmitriou.
Ultimately, Byrne hopes that “reopening will … make the baby really well.”
“There’s room for plasticity in the brains of babies and children,” she told the Post.
rum too Adriana is optimistic that she will catch up as she ages. “People around me say that if I go back to school and study, I’ll be fine,” she told the Post.
