Babies born in lockdown ‘slower to meet most milestones’

Irish study finds babies born during lockdown less likely to be able to speak one definite word or wave ‘bye-bye’
Scientists say a quarter of babies had not met a child their own age by their first birthday
PA Archive
Daniel Keane12 October 2022

Babies born in the first lockdown were slower to meet many developmental milestones, a new study has found.

Researchers in Ireland found that “pandemic babies” were significantly less likely to be able to point, speak one definite word and wave goodbye by the time they turned one.

The study compared a “pandemic cohort” of 309 infants born in Ireland between March and May 2020 with historical data on 1,600 babies born between 2008 and 2011. Ireland spent five months of 2020 in a strict lockdown, with stringent measures in place for the remainder of the year.

The researchers, from the Royal College of Surgeons Ireland and University College Cork, noted that many parents were “isolated” during the lockdown which had impacted their experience of raising a child.

“We found that social isolation restrictions lead to 25 per cent of infants not having met a child their own age by their first birthday, which will have led to a reduction in social peer interaction,” they said.

“Because of lockdown measures, it is likely that Covid-19 era babies heard a narrower repertoire of language and saw fewer unmasked faces speaking to them.”

Babies born during the pandemic were found to be 12 per cent less likely to have one “definite and meaningful” word, nine per cent less likely to point at people or objects and 6.5 per cent less likely to be able to wave “bye-bye”.

But there was a six per cent increase in the number of pandemic babies who were able to crawl, suggesting that more time spent on the ground while at home — rather than in pushchairs — may have had an impact.

The scientists said it remained “unclear” whether mask-wearing had impacted babies’ speech development.

They added: “The development of language in babies is complex, with younger babies fixating on the eyes of carers during interactions while babies from six months of age tend to shift their gaze from the eyes to the mouth.”

However, the researchers cautioned that the “overall relative risk reductions” of the study were small and that infants would likely catch up with their pre-pandemic peers following the lifting of restrictions.

The findings were published in the BMJ journal, Archives of Disease in Childhood.

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