Developmental and behavioural outcomes at 2 years in babies born during the COVID-19 pandemic: communication concerns in a pandemic birth cohort

Introduction: The CORAL (Impact of Corona Virus Pandemic on Allergic and Autoimmune Dysregulation in Infants Born During Lockdown) study reported a reduction in social communication milestones in 12-month-old infants born into the COVID-19 pandemic. Aims: To look at 24-month developmental and behavioural outcomes in the CORAL cohort. Design: The CORAL study is a longitudinal prospective observational study of Irish infants born in the first 3 months of the pandemic. At 24 months of age, the Ages and Stages Developmental Questionnaire (ASQ24) and the Child Behaviour Checklist (CBCL) were completed and compared with prepandemic BASELINE (Babies After SCOPE: Evaluating the Longitudinal Impact Using Neurological and Nutritional Impact) cohort. Results: 917 babies (312 CORAL infants and 605 BASELINE infants) were included. At 24 months of age, infants in the CORAL and BASELINE cohorts had similar developmental ASQ24 scores in fine motor, problem solving and personal and social domains but ASQ24 communication scores were significantly lower in the CORAL group compared with the BASELINE cohort (mean (SD) 49.5 (15.1) vs 53.7 (11.6), p Conclusion: 24-month-old pandemic-born infants had largely similar developmental and behavioural scores compared with their prepandemic counterparts. Concerns have been raised in the communication developmental domain.</p

Infants born during the Covid-19 pandemic have less interest in masked faces than unmasked faces

The COVID-19 pandemic was managed with lockdown, social distancing, mask-wearing and vaccination. Babies experienced societal isolation and encountered mask-wearing. There was speculation about whether COVID-19 mitigation measures, including mask-wearing, would impact child development. Deficits were identified in early communication skills among babies aged up to 24 months assessed during the pandemic. The CORAL Study is a longitudinal study of over 350 Irish infants born into the pandemic.4 We have previously demonstrated that CORAL infants had limited social circles and a reduction in social/communication skills relative to a historical cohort at 12 and 24 months of age.3 4 We used eye-tracking technology to determine where 18-month-old CORAL infants fixed their gaze when looking at unmasked and masked adults. </p