Preterm Infant Outcomes Following COVID-19 Lockdowns in Melbourne, Australia

  1. Brendan Mulcahy
  2. Daniel L. Rolnik
  3. Alexia Matheson
  4. Yizhen Liu
  5. Kirsten R. Palmer
  6. Ben W. Mol
  7. Atul Malhotra

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Abstract

Background Community lockdowns during the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic may influence preterm birth rates, but mechanisms are unclear. Methods We compared neonatal outcomes of preterm infants born to mothers exposed to community lockdowns in 2020 (exposed group) to those born in 2019 (control group). Main outcome studied was composite of significant neonatal morbidity or death. Results Median gestational age was 35 + 4 weeks (295 infants, exposed group) vs. 35 + 0 weeks (347 infants, control group) (p = 0.108). The main outcome occurred in 36/295 (12.2%) infants in exposed group vs. 46/347 (13.3%) in control group (p = 0.69). Continuous positive airway pressure (CPAP) use, jaundice requiring phototherapy, hypoglycaemia requiring treatment, early neonatal white cell and neutrophil counts were significantly reduced in the exposed group. Conclusions COVID-19 community lockdowns did not alter composite neonatal outcomes in preterm infants, but reduced rates of some common outcomes as well as early neonatal inflammatory markers.

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  1. Version published to 10.3390/children8121169
  2. ScreenIT

    SciScore for 10.1101/2021.09.29.21264295: (What is this?)

    Please note, not all rigor criteria are appropriate for all manuscripts.

    Table 1: Rigor

    EthicsIRB: Ethical approval was obtained from Monash Health Human Research Ethics Committee (approval number QA/69113/MonH-2020-235157).
    Sex as a biological variablePreterm infants (>20 weeks and < 37 weeks’ gestation) born to mothers who conceived between 1 November 2019 and 29 February 2020, who were between 3 and 19 weeks pregnant at the beginning of lockdown (exposed group), compared to preterm infants conceived at the same time period the year before (control group) were included. [3] Conception was calculated based on gestational age from first day of the last menstrual period and confirmed with first trimester ultrasound.
    Randomizationnot detected.
    Blindingnot detected.
    Power Analysisnot detected.

    Table 2: Resources

    Software and Algorithms
    SentencesResources
    Analyses were performed using Stata statistical package (Release 16, College Station, TX).
    Stata
    suggested: (Stata, RRID:SCR_012763)

    Results from OddPub: We did not detect open data. We also did not detect open code. Researchers are encouraged to share open data when possible (see Nature blog).

    Results from LimitationRecognizer: We detected the following sentences addressing limitations in the study:
    Limitations include the retrospective design and the relatively small numbers of preterm infants affected by significant morbidity, limiting the statistical power.

    Results from TrialIdentifier: No clinical trial numbers were referenced.

    Results from Barzooka: We did not find any issues relating to the usage of bar graphs.

    Results from JetFighter: We did not find any issues relating to colormaps.

    Results from rtransparent:
    • Thank you for including a conflict of interest statement. Authors are encouraged to include this statement when submitting to a journal.
    • Thank you for including a funding statement. Authors are encouraged to include this statement when submitting to a journal.
    • No protocol registration statement was detected.

    Results from scite Reference Check: We found no unreliable references.

    About SciScore

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  3. Version published to 10.1101/2021.09.29.21264295v2 on medRxiv
  4. Version published to 10.1101/2021.09.29.21264295v1 on medRxiv