The Telegram (St. John's)

‘Now is not a good time’

Why COVID-19 and lockdown anxiety could be leading to lower birth rates

-

Catherine Lebel’s team launched their online survey of pregnant women in April. Lebel and her colleagues wanted to know how were pregnant women holding up. How much did they fear their own lives were in danger? Were they feeling more alone than usual? How much were they worried that exposure to the COVID-19 virus will harm “your unborn baby”?

The initial target was 1,200 women. Two thousand signed on within two weeks. To date, more than 6,000 have responded. An early analysis based on 1,987 women surveyed across Canada has been released in a pre-print article. The researcher­s found high rates of anxiety and depression, three to four times what they would normally see in pregnancy. Many women were “quite a bit,” or very much worried about what the virus might do to the fetus, though the data at this point suggest pregnant women aren’t more susceptibl­e to serious COVID-19 infections, and there is no evidence, nor any signal, that it causes birth defects. Many women worried they weren’t getting the prenatal care they needed. Many weren’t getting adequate sleep, and the less sleep, the worse the anxiety and depression.

The pandemic, Lebel and her co-authors wrote, is presenting “serious psychologi­cal challenges” that could have consequenc­es for both mom and baby. “We do see changes in brain structure and brain function in kids whose mothers were more depressed or more anxious during pregnancy,” said Lebel, Canada Research Chair in pediatric neuroimagi­ng at the University of Calgary.

The survey was about reaching out to women already pregnant, to better understand what might help buffer anxiety and depression when faced with a unique stressor — answer: strong support from partners, family and friends, and longer sleep —“so we’re not asking any questions about decisions to conceive or have children,” Lebel said.

However, the same anxiety and uncertaint­y has some wondering whether they should even get pregnant. Some American economists are already forecastin­g a COVID-19 “baby bust” that could see up to half a million fewer children born in the U.S. alone.

PLAYFUL SPECULATIO­N

When the pandemic hit, when millions were urged to shelter in place, some “playfully speculated” there would be a spike in births, nine months out, the authors of a report by Washington, Dc-based Brookings Institutio­n, a non-profit public policy organizati­on, wrote. But the pandemic is a largescale disaster, and studies have shown that each one percentage increase in unemployme­nt is associated with a similar decrease in birth rates. An analysis of the Great Recession and the 1918 Spanish Flu, both of which generated large declines in U.S. births, suggest the U.S. could see a drop on the order of 300,00 to 500,000 births next year, according to the Brookings paper.

Newspapers in English

Newspapers from Canada