"Nature" concerns: How has the brain development of children born during the epidemic been affected?

In March 2020, the World Health Organization declared that the outbreak caused by the new coronavirus met the criteria for a "pandemic"

These children, known as the "COVID generation", began to experience unprecedented pressure in the womb.

It can take years or even decades to draw conclusions from large-scale analysis

This month, an in-depth article in the journal Nature explores how the pandemic is shaping children's brains and behavior

Prenatal stress and decreased communication skills

Some pediatric experts at New York-Presbyterian Morgan Stanley Children's Hospital have been focusing on infant neurodevelopment since before the pandemic, especially the development of communication and motor skills during the first six months of life

After the outbreak of the new crown, they first looked to see if the virus infection caused neurodevelopmental delays in newborns

When researchers compared babies born during the pandemic with pre-pandemic data, they found that these "COVID-19" babies generally scored lower on average on tests of gross motor, fine motor and communication skills

According to their results recently published in JAMA Pediatrics, the top journal in the field of pediatrics, the researchers analyzed that the intense stress a mother experiences during pregnancy may be a major factor that negatively affects fetal brain development

Researchers at the University of Calgary in Canada surveyed more than 8,000 pregnant women during the outbreak

When they performed magnetic resonance imaging scans of the brains of babies as young as three months after birth, they found that mothers who were more anxious or depressed during pregnancy seemed to affect neural connections in the fetal brain

▲The researchers looked at the connections between the amygdala (a brain area involved in emotional processing) and other brain regions in the infant brain (Image source: Reference [1]; Credit: Kathryn Manning)

Other studies have found similar associations between prenatal stress and child development

One piece of perhaps reassuring news is that while pressure in the womb may be detrimental to the baby, some historical research suggests that the effects may not be lasting

Lack of interaction and deficits in motor skills

Another worry may be after birth: Infants and toddlers don't interact as much with their parents and caregivers as they did before the pandemic

Sean Deoni, Ph.

They used a set of methods similar to IQ tests to measure the neurodevelopment of infants and toddlers

▲Dr.

According to Dr.
Deoni's analysis, these problems stem primarily from a lack of interaction
.
In a follow-up study, which has not yet been published, his research team documented parent-child interactions at home, and the volume of parent-child conversations over the past two years was lower than in previous years
.
In addition, infants and toddlers don't get as many big motor practice as they used to because they can't play with other kids or go to the playground as often
.

Lack of interaction with peers may hinder neurodevelopment in some children, an idea supported by several other studies
.
For example, in a paper published in May 2021, researchers in the United Kingdom surveyed 189 local families.
Parents reported whether their children between the ages of 8 months and 3 years had received daycare or preschool during the epidemic.
At the same time, the study Staff assessed the children's language and executive function skills
.
They found that children who were cared for in groups during the pandemic had stronger skills
.

The study also found that the advantages of group care are more pronounced for children from low-income families, where it is often more difficult for such families to provide a supportive learning environment at home and for parents to simultaneously care for young children, educate other children and work Allocate time between
.

The impact of masks

The potential impact of mask wearing on children's development has also drawn researchers' attention
.
Experiments by psychologists have shown that wearing a mask is as easy as wearing sunglasses to mistake people and misunderstand the many emotions conveyed by the face
.
In addition, for young children who are learning languages, when the opaque masks cover the movement of the mouth, whether it will affect their understanding of what adults say is also a concern for parents
.

Professor Edward Tronick, a psychologist at the University of Massachusetts Boston, conducted a classic experiment in the 1970s: when parents interact face-to-face with their infants, if their faces are suddenly expressionless, the infants will panic and reduce interaction
.

During the pandemic, he and his colleagues conducted a new experiment to see if masks would have a similar effect
.
They assessed parent-infant interactions through videos recorded by parents on their mobile phones and found that infants would briefly change their expressions, divert their eyes, or finger masks after noticing that their parents were wearing masks, but did not interrupt their interactions with their parents.
, these behaviors seem to indicate that masks do not completely block children's perception of emotions
.

Another study looked at the effect of different masks on speech recognition by 2-year-olds
.
The experimental results show that wearing an opaque mask to speak the familiar words of the child does not affect the child's understanding, and the recognition results are the same as when the mask is not worn
.
According to study author Dr Leher Singh, a psychologist at the National University of Singapore, children are "more able to compensate for information deficits than we think"
.
However, the researchers found that when speaking while wearing a transparent mask, because the transparent medium brought some interference to visual observation, it would affect the child's recognition of spoken language
.

How to make the new crown generation grow better?

Many researchers believe that it is too early to draw conclusions from these early studies on the impact of the pandemic on the lives of babies born in the past two years
.
Several large-scale studies involving multi-national research institutions have been launched, and researchers are learning more about how to make the new crown generation better through data sharing
.

Some researchers are optimistic, arguing that many children who lag behind can catch up with no lasting effects
.

Another paediatrician, Dr.
Dani Dumitriu, also believes that even if children's brains are really affected by the epidemic, it is not too late
.

These existing studies suggest that it makes sense to get more support during pregnancy, such as from a partner or close friend, to reduce stress for pregnant women
.

The researchers also advocate for some interventions to support families immediately after the child is born
.
Parents can play and talk with younger children on a regular basis, giving them the opportunity to play with others in a safe environment
.
Policies designed to support families and children will work better for this special generation
.

Note: The original text has been deleted

References:

[1] Melinda Wenner Moyer (2022) The COVID generation: how is the pandemic affecting kids' brains? Nature Doi: https://doi.
org/10.
1038/d41586-022-00027-4

[2] Meet 'Gen C,' the Covid generation.
Retrieved Jan.
13, 2022, from https://edition.
cnn.
com/2021/03/11/us/covid-generation-gen-c/index.
html

[3] Lauren C.
Shuffrey et al.
, (2022) Association of birth during the COVID-19 pandemic with neurodevelopmental status at 6 months in infants with and without in utero exposure to maternal SARS-CoV-2 infection.
JAMA Pediatrics Doi: 10.
1001/jamapediatrics.
2021.
5563

[4] Deoni, SCL, Beauchemin, J.
, Volpe, A.
, D'Sa, V.
& the RESONANCE Consortium.
(2021) Impact of the COVID-19 Pandemic on Early Child Cognitive Development: Initial Findings in a Longitudinal Observational Study of Child Health.
Preprint at medRxiv https://doi.
org/10.
1101/2021.
08.
10.
21261846

[5] Davies, C.
et al.
(2021) Early childhood education and care (ECEC) during COVID-19 boosts growth in language and executive function.
Infant Child Dev.
Doi: https://doi.
org/10.
1002/icd .
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[6] Leher Singh et al.
, (2021) Infants recognize words spoken through opaque masks but not through clear masks.
Dev Sci.
DOI: 10.
1111/desc.
13117