Casablanca – A recent study from the British Medical Journal shows that babies born during COVID-19 lockdowns lack social communication skills.
According to the research findings, lockdown babies take longer to learn how to use their hands for communication, such as pointing and waving.
The study examined two cohorts: the “CORAL cohort,” a group of 309 babies born between March and May 2020 in Ireland during the quarantine, and the “BASELINE cohort,” a group of 1,629 newborns from a database between 2008 and 2011.
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According to the researchers, CORAL stands for “Impact of Coronavirus Pandemic on Allergic and Autoimmune Dysregulation in Infants Born During Lockdown.”
Meanwhile, the BASELINE group represents Babies After SCOPE: “Evaluating the Longitudinal Impact using Neurological and Nutritional Impact.”
The assessment focused on 10 developmental milestones including the ability to crawl, side step along furniture, stand-alone, pick up small objects with thumb and index finger (pincer grip), stack bricks, finger feed, know their own name, express one definite and meaningful word, point at objects, and to wave goodbye’.
Compared to BASELINE infants, the study found that by the age of 12 months, 76.6% of lockdown babies were less likely to have one definite and meaningful word, whereas 89.3% of babies born pre-covid achieved this feat.
COVID-19-generation babies were behind on their ability to point, with 83.8% compared to BASELINE group reaching 92.8%, and they were less likely to be able to wave goodbye with a 87.7% success rate vs children from BASELINE’S total of 94.4%.
The study, therefore, concluded that pandemic-related social isolation may have affected social communication abilities in newborns born during the pandemic compared to the cohort born prior to the COVID-19 crisis.
“Babies are resilient and inquisitive by nature, and it is very likely that with societal re-emergence and increase in social circles that their social communication skills will improve,” the study noted. “However, this cohort and others will need to be followed up to school age to ensure that this is the case.”
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