No Change in Preterm Birth and Stillbirth in Philadelphia During COVID Pandemic

Despite early reports indicating a decline in preterm births during the coronavirus pandemic period, an investigation by researchers at Children's Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP) and the Perelman School of Medicine has found no change in preterm births and stillbirths at two Philadelphia hospitals in the first four months of the pandemic. The findings resulted from examining an ongoing, racially-diverse pregnancy cohort that assesses both spontaneous and medically-indicated preterm birth. The findings of the study are published in the journal JAMA. "Preterm birth is very complex, with a diverse set of presentations and unknown causes," stated Heather H. Burris, MD, MPH, an attending physician. "Because we have two independent reviewers evaluating every preterm birth at two Penn Medicine hospitals, we were able to complete a rigorous examination of multiple types of preterm birth for the first four months of the COVID pandemic and compare that data to the same period in previous years."

The cohort, known as GeoBirth, includes over 100,000 births at two Penn Medicine hospitals in Philadelphia since 2008. Each preterm birth, characterized as any birth happening before 37 weeks' gestation, is manually classified by 2 independent, blinded reviewers as either a spontaneous preterm birth or a medically-indicated preterm birth. The former involves preterm labor or early rupture of the membranes. The latter includes conditions that require an early delivery for the mother or baby's health, such as preeclampsia or intrauterine growth restriction.

The researchers examined 2,992 live births from March through the end of June 2020 and than those births to 5,875 over the same four-month period in 2018 and 2019. Making use of the strong GeoBirth data set, the research team examined rates of overall preterm birth, spontaneous preterm birth, medically registered preterm birth, and stillbirth, described as intrauterine demise after 20 weeks.

The data did not reveal any significant change in preterm or stillbirth rates during the coronavirus pandemic. Even after breaking down the preterm birth data by natural and medically-indicated preterm births, the researchers still did not recognize differences between the pre-pandemic and pandemic periods. These findings vary from European studies that have reported a reduction in preterm birth and an increase in stillbirth during the first months of the COVID pandemic.



Source-Medindia