BABIES born during the Covid lockdowns appear to have been slower in reaching key communication milestones. Researchers compared a “pandemic cohort” of 309 infants born in Ireland between March and May 2020 against historical data on around 1,600 babies born between 2008 and 2011. The so-called “pandemic babies” were significantly less likely to have achieved three key social communication benchmarks by the time they turned one, based on parental observations. “We recently demonstrated that families of babies in the CORAL [Covid lockdown] cohort had a median of one social contact outside the home at birth, increasing to four when the babies reached six months of age. They write: “As babies spent most of the lockdown in their familiar home neighbourhood, they were less likely to encounter new items of interest which might prompt pointing.

Source: The Herald October 12, 2022 06:01 UTC