- Published
- 27 February 2023
- Journal article
Changes in preterm birth and stillbirth during COVID-19 lockdowns in 26 countries
- Authors
-
- Source
- Nature Human Behaviour
Abstract
Preterm birth (PTB) is the leading cause of infant mortality worldwide. Changes in PTB rates, ranging from -90% to +30%, were reported in many countries following early COVID-19 pandemic response measures (“lockdowns”). It is unclear whether this variation reflects real differences in lockdown impacts, or perhaps differences in stillbirth rates and/or study designs. We present interrupted time series and meta-analyses using harmonized data from 52 million births in 26 countries, 18 of which had representative population-based data, with overall PTB rates ranging from 6% to 12% and stillbirth ranging from 2.5 to 10.5 per 1,000 births. Here we show small reductions in PTB in the first [odds ratio 0.96, 95% confidence interval 0.95-0.98, p-value
Rights
This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons license and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.
Cite as
Calvert, C., Brockway, M., Zoega, H., Miller, J., Been, J., Amegah, A., Eradat Oskoui, S., Hunter, K., Mulholland, R., Wood, R., Sheikh, A., Stock, S., Racine-Poon, A., Abok, I., Aghaeepour, N., Akwaowo, C., Alshaikh, B., Ayede, A., Bacchini, F., Barekatain, B., Barnes, R., Bebak, K., Berard, A., Bhutta, Z., Brook, J., Bryan, L., Cajachagua-Torres, K., Campbell-Yeo, M. & Azad, M. 2023, 'Changes in preterm birth and stillbirth during COVID-19 lockdowns in 26 countries', Nature Human Behaviour. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41562-023-01522-y