Effects of COVID on babies born in lockdown year

[PlantDoctor]

Just been reading this BBC article about kids starting school who were born during lockdown.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c39kry9j3rno

DD was born just before lockdown so luckily was able to meet grandparents etc. before the first lockdown, but thinking back it was such an isolating time. I remember being grateful she was only tiny and didn't understand she was missing out, but obviously now we can see the effects of babies not socialising with others. It says 1/3 of this cohort have additional speech and language needs, and I know DD's preschool teacher said theirs was a particularly difficult year.

Crazy times.

Well there seems to be this thing that when a baby is born they and the mother needs to be hidden away and only have visitors on approval so how on earth is lockdown because of covid any different?

Next there will be being in a baby in lockdown affects pensions in years to come and 'lockdown grandparents'

Will lockdown be blamed when a 2 year old has a tantrum in 2124?

I suppose another theory could be if exposure to Covid has caused these issues rather than lockdown ?

@Crunchymum so sorry about your mum.
I had DS in June 2020 and basically used his enthusiastic big sister (then 2.5) to recreate the baby groups we couldn’t go to. I worried about her most when nursery was closed for so long but she seems unaffected, now going into Y2. It was a miserable maternity leave in a teeny house with my husband trying to work from home! They closed the park ffs. It all seems like nonsense now but it was scary in the beginning so we took it seriously. DS might have been a little clingier to me until he was c.2 but is now very social and speech is constant fine. We live far away from family anyway but did form a bubble with our neighbours who had young kids my DD was very friendly with.

It makes sense to me. Babies and small children learn by observation. If there are fewer people to observe, there are less learning opportunities. Yes small children need their primary caregiver more than anyone else, but surely we have all held a friend's child or made faces at a baby in a queue? Lots of moments of interaction that were replaced by the tv and young siblings. I would expect most of the children that were under school age, or born in lockdown, would experience some kind of delay in speech and social skills. I don't understand the delay in toilet training for children without additional needs though.

I feel the same way. DD's speech is good, but I do wonder if there are any issues that we can't see yet. And like you, I feel kind of traumatised by it. It was a very difficult time, particularly as I had PPD and no baby groups or anything to take the edge off.

Developmentally, under 2s really don't need any more than their own families for socialisation.

BUT the affects on their parents at this time may well have had an impact. Stressed, anxious parents can foster insecurity in children. Parents didn't have as much support from extended family and baby and toddler groups etc.

Having said that, I work in child development and am generally much more worried about the impact of smartphones and the defunding of early childhood support (surestart etc) on families than I am about the pandemic. We were talking about the worrying rise in children coming into reception still in nappies and with very low levels of language before the pandemic and I think it's unlikely to suddenly change once the last 'covid cohort ' are through.

@PlantDoctor it's taken me a long time to realise and accept I had PPD as I never saw or spoke to anyone about it.

I remember the first time we went to a baby group she was about 14 months and I just kept wishing we could've done it from the start. It would've made the world of difference to us both.

My lockdown baby was out for walks and in the shops though, that only stopped for that very first lockdown which was relatively short (didn't feel it at the time though!).

She was desperate for more interaction by the time she started nursery at ten months though (may 2021). The staff said all of her age group were on the extremes - all either loving the extra people or finding it very hard to settle. But they're 4 now and all fine.

That's probably true but we can still as a country worry about the effects on those who were affected. I don't think it's fair to say that anyone will have "thrived" in that situation as there was no real way to apply those resources to engage babies with the world. You couldn't just pay more to go to a baby group or visit family etc.. Of course, some will have, but judging from my daily walks in the first lockdown, most people were at home. The roads and even pavements were eerily quiet in lockdown 1 (certainly less so in later lockdowns!)

I think it might be partially that issues weren't picked up as quickly as there was less access to health visitors and medical professionals. The study is investigating a variety of issues I believe.

Sorry for your loss, @Crunchymum. I do think most people followed the rules as it was eerily quiet during first lockdown. We were worried about catching it with a newborn, but equally about passing it to elderly relatives too.

@Edingril - I’ll bite- in my mother’s generation, you stayed in hospital for at least a week with strict visiting hours when you had a baby. By the time I had my first, if it was a straight forward delivery you were expected to go home that day or the following morning and family (who themselves stayed in hospital) now expected hosting. Not surprising that increasingly women are saying they need to recover before anyone other than those who will look after the mother visit. (if you are close family and being kept away from visiting, it’s because the mum to be has realised you will be a burden not a support.)

However, wanting a couple of days up to a week to physically recover before you host guests is not comparable to babies not seeing another person for months. Have you forgotten just how long long down went on for? And then how long restrictions lasted (including people wearing face masks, known to have a negative effect on baby’s development because they can’t see mouths move /create the shapes to match the noise).

My eldest was in year 5 when lockdown started, he went to secondary school on the train and had to have face masks for the journey there and back in year 7. That’s a long time for baby and toddler development to not see lots of different adults.

in our town, it was nearly 2 years before the “stay and play” toddler /baby groups in church halls reopened. That social interaction was lost unless you could afford to pay for the more expensive classes like “sing and sign” or “baby sensory”.

none of that is comparable to a mum wanting to wait for her stitches to heal before extended family turn up to sit on her sofa viewing the new baby while she runs round making them brews and snacks.

Yes this seems to be part of it, if you ask me. They didn't see people interacting for a long time, then later a lot of interactions would have been behind masks etc.

I also think speech delays wouldn't have been picked up as reliably as there was less access to health visitors and others.

When my eldest was about 3 I guess, she was given a set of knock-off superhero capes and masks - the felt ones that go over your eyes with an elastic around the back of the head.

She put the mask on and announced she was going for coffee.

I'm the same. I was incredibly ill.

It is interesting to read the article and other’s experiences. I’m a lockdown mum, the first day of my first pregnancy dates to to first day of lockdown (eep) and I now have a fairly typical 3yr old (I hope). We live in a city and managed to attend socially distanced baby classes (massive thanks to the amazing Gymboree) most days and DC started nursery at 13 months, so does appear to have had a reasonably typical experience of socialising, despite restrictions. We also had the grandparental bubble kick in so that helped maintain some normality too. We did however really suffer with bugs and viruses and hospitalisations with RSV… DC hadn’t had a single cold or bug prior to starting nursery.

What I don’t know is whether the variation in the 3/4 year olds anxiety, speech, development etc is down to normal, expected variation or if there is a covid effect, as I don’t have a comparison. My DC is due to start school Sept 2025 so I’ll be looking out for information on that cohort, if it arises.

I know 2 families with children born a few weeks before lockdown. Both children are sociable, toilet trained and have good speech and independence skills. They are more than ready to start school.

The irony of calling this thread “scaremongering”. I suppose the government’s massive campaign of fear paled into insignificance in comparison.

Let’s see which bites harder in years to come: the effects of covid, or the effects of lockdowns and government fear porn.

This thread is genuinely giving me the shivers and my eyes are leaking.

Had my one and only miracle (and I do mean miracle) the day the schools closed in 2020.

I CANNOT explain the whirlwind of emotions. New baby you never thought you'd have, world locking down in what very much seemed at that time the coming apocalypse.

Fuck you if you were partying and carrying on with all your friends. I genuinely believed my baby might die if I did, or that society would collapse and I'd be left alone with him to battle it out in some sort of post apocalyptic wasteland. And before you laugh at that being ridiculous, if you think back to those very early days it really wasn't. It very much seemed like we were teetering on the brink.

Add the new baby hormones and adjusting to becoming a mum and NOBODY COULD VISIT.

My baby wasn't touched by anyone outside me and his dad for a number of months.

There was no hv or midwife. Actually, we had one midwife visit in the first week. She was coughing a bit and the visceral panic I felt to get her out of my house was terrifying. She was there probably four minutes, with a new mask and gloves and clearly terrified herself.

The morning we brought baby home we stripped naked in front of the washing machine and boil washed EVERYTHING that had been inside the hospital and then, I had forgotten this, I took my baby and wiped him all over with some sort of pink anti bac stuff I had just in case he was harbouring covid germs. We didn't know anything at all about covid then or that it was airborne.

All the shops had closed since me going in for induction on the Monday and coming out into a wasteland on the Sunday. You couldn't get supermarket deliveries and there was NO WAY we were standing in a queue to go round Tesco with a newborn or that I was sending baby's dad to Tesco to bring death back to us. YES it felt like that was possible.

When we finally got shopping deliveries I was one of those washing the packets with a bonkers system.

Our appointment to register baby's birth was cancelled (I'd been begging baby's dad not to go to it in person, they stayed open a couple of days longer than the shops i recall and I thought he might catch covid at the appointment) and we couldn't legally register baby for a long time. I made him put an online birth announcement in the paper so I felt that baby's name would be officially recorded somewhere if birth appointments never started again. That seemed like a thing that might happen.

We had friends working in the NHS bringing back the most harrowing stories of the covid wards and several first hand stories from a friend about pregnant and new mums who caught covid in those very early days and died in heart wrenching circumstances. It seemed so real, absolutely nothing like the get a "cold" and crack on with your life it is now (I had covid for the third time last month as it happens).

My baby did not set foot in a shop for almost a year. I still have a phot of him, in the sling, in bloody Home Bargains as it was the first shop I took him in. Me in a mask, him gazing up at the lights because they were so new.

We did eventually go to a couple of baby sensory type groups when they were permitted, but everyone in masks and socially distanced, trying not to let the babies grab the masks off and wondering if singing Wheels on the Bus too loud was spreading covid.

That's before I even go into the trauma of not having any family support. Baby's grandad died a year later having had mostly limited garden visits with his miracle grandchild. The stress of planning an illegal road trip to see him when he was diagnosed terminal, and worrying if we would bring covid to him and kill him off faster. No hotels being legally open and genuinely opening a week planning to buy a camper van so we could sleep on grandad's driveway in it, until we found an airbnb that would illegally let us stay nearby.

Baby's other grandparent not coping with lockdown at all and getting seriously mentally ill, there being no NHS support and now I can't even begin to describe how that's panned out.

Looking back it all seems utterly insane and it was, of course it was. But that crazy half life of my baby's first weeks is something I don't think I'll ever fully get over, as you can tell from this massive rambling which has been quite cathartic.

Me and his dad split up, not because of covid specifically but the stress of being parents in that situation didn't help.

Kid starts school next week. He's healthy, crazily intelligent and the best thing to ever happen to me.

But fuck me, looking back that was hard.

We can't know the effects of letting covid run for sure, because of the concerted efforts made by millions to slow it. That's the point.

I'm glad we never got to the point of mass graves like NY though. I still find it hard to absorb that that happened.

I would agree with this.
Not being judgemental at all but parents learn from other parents, family etc and my colleagues with young babies born at this time describe struggling with parenting and use screens heavily even with very young babies.
All are now under SLT, have anxiety, behavioural issues etc

I find this fascinating. DC1 was in reception and DC2 was about 8 weeks old when we went into lockdown.

DC1’s class had a reputation as a class with a number of children with high needs prior to that first lockdown and I don’t think Covid helped at all. Year 3 was the first year their class was completely unaffected by Covid - they’re going into Year 5 now.

DC2 - well, I never worried about DC2 as his speech, toileting and so on were way further on than DC1’s at the same age (but DC1 does have ASD and other neurodivergence). We were out every day for walks, going to baby groups where these were running, doing the school run when schools were open, etc. We just didn’t see family like we would have done as they’re at some distance away and one of my DPs was shielding.

But I wonder if some of the effects are more subtle. Both DC2 and his cousin are starting YR this year. Both are visibly more addicted to/interested in tech than DC1 was at the same age (we do regulate usage, obviously). And the time spent on/with tech is both time spent not doing other things and time spent affecting brain development. This is in fairly affluent households with lots of support and options such as toys, books, etc. Professional parents, English first language. I’d expect, as someone said upthread, that the impact on more disadvantaged children is going to be much higher.

I gave birth in Jan 2020 but I had 3 dds at home already ages 5,3&1.
DD who was 1 at the time although she is absolutely fine her class in reception was high needs.
And ds who was born in Jan 2020 who should be starting reception but we have decided to home school all pur children from September...his nursery class had alot of 4 year olds still in nappies!
There are also lots of older children who have anxiety ect I do feel for all the children of the lockdown no matter what the age as so much changed in 2020.

Wow, you really had an awful time of it. I'm really sorry to read about your struggles and traumatic time. I'm sorry for the loss of your dad too 💐

Congratulations on your miracle baby, and I'm glad you're both doing well now! X

I don't think it has affected (effected? I don't know) DD at all, she was about 18 months and nursery reopened after the first month or two. I feel it would have impacted school age children much more. How would newborns have been negatively impacted, from what I read on Mumsnet people like to hide at home without any visitors when they have young babies anyway