Extremely Preterm Infant Admissions Within the SafeBoosC-III Consortium During the COVID-19 Lockdown

Abstract

Objective: To evaluate if the number of admitted extremely preterm (EP) infants (born before 28 weeks of gestational age) differed in the neonatal intensive care units (NICUs) of the SafeBoosC-III consortium during the global lockdown when compared to the corresponding time period in 2019.Design: This is a retrospective, observational study. Forty-six out of 79 NICUs (58%) from 17 countries participated. Principal investigators were asked to report the following information: (1) Total number of EP infant admissions to their NICU in the 3 months where the lockdown restrictions were most rigorous during the first phase of the COVID-19 pandemic, (2) Similar EP infant admissions in the corresponding 3 months of 2019, (3) the level of local restrictions during the lockdown period, and (4) the local impact of the COVID-19 lockdown on the everyday life of a pregnant woman.Results: The number of EP infant admissions during the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic was 428 compared to 457 in the corresponding 3 months in 2019 (−6.6%, 95% CI −18.2 to +7.1%, p = 0.33). There were no statistically significant differences within individual geographic regions and no significant association between the level of lockdown restrictions and difference in the number of EP infant admissions. A post-hoc analysis based on data from the 46 NICUs found a decrease of 10.3%in the total number of NICU admissions (n = 7,499 in 2020 vs. n = 8,362 in 2019).Conclusion: This ad hoc study did not confirm previous reports of a major reduction in the number of extremely pretermbirths during the first phase of the COVID-19 pandemic.Clinical Trial Registration:ClinicalTrial.gov, identifier: NCT04527601 (registered August 26, 2020), https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT04527601.

Preterm birth rates were slightly lower in Denmark during the first year of the COVID‐19 pandemic compared with the previous 4 years

“…This is because they were mostly based on information from healthcare facilities that did not necessarily represent the general population. 13 There have only been a few population‐based studies, 2 , 3 , 14 , 15 and some of these were Nordic population‐based studies that included data on both live births and stillbirths from well‐defined geographic areas. A study that included population‐based data on live births and stillbirths in Norway, Sweden and Denmark has also been published.…”

Successful establishment and five-year sustainability of a neonatal-specific antimicrobial stewardship program in a low middle-income country

“…Another challenge was the COVID-19 pandemic which occurred after 2 years of study implementation. As many other centers, the pandemic affected admission numbers and the acuity of patients admitted to the NICU ( Abdul-Mumin et al, 2021 ; Greenbury et al, 2021 ; Rasmussen et al, 2021 ), with both factors influencing DOT and LOS which might have affected the AUR.…”

Preterm birth rates among twins during the Danish COVID‐19 lockdown and when restrictions were relaxed

“…It showed an 18% decrease in all EPT births in Denmark and Norway during the most restrictive 3 months pandemic period. 4 However, another study maintained that EPT births did not fall in Norway. 3 If we assume that 10% of the pregnancies were related to multifetal EPT births, based on the proportion of preterm twins seen in this study (Table 1 ), then this suggests that singleton EPT births fell in Denmark by about 40% during the study period.…”

“…Three subsequent studies, which included Danish data, examined preterm birth rates, but did not exclude multifetal pregnancies. 3 , 4 , 5 This made interpreting the data difficult, as these pose different risk factors for preterm births. This prompted us to examine the effect of the COVID‐19 measures on the preterm birth rate and the gestational age distribution in twin pregnancies.…”

“…Studies tend to underestimate the effect of including twin pregnancies, 3 , 4 , 5 in cohorts containing singleton pregnancies. Table 1 shows that the combined OR for singleton and twin EPT births of 0.20 (95% CI, 0.04–0.72) was higher than the OR for singleton births during lockdown, 0.09 (95% CI, 0.01–0.40), compared to 2015–2019.…”