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Pandemic upheaval offers a huge natural experiment

The disruption that the coronavirus has caused to daily life has created unique research opportunities for scientists.
  1. Julia Rosen

    1. Julia Rosen is a freelance journalist in Portland, Oregon.

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Soon after COVID-19 lockdowns began in March 2020, physicians in certain nations noticed something unexpected: the number of premature births seemed to plummet. Preliminary research in one region of Ireland documented a 73% decrease in very-low-birth-weight babies1. And scientists in Denmark measured a roughly 90% country-wide drop in extremely premature births compared with the previous five years2. In Nepal, however, researchers reported3 that the risk of preterm birth — before 37 weeks of gestation — jumped by 30% during lockdown, a pandemic trend that scientists expect to find in other economically disadvantaged nations. In some countries, reports of increased numbers of stillbirths further complicated the picture4.

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Nature 596, 149-151 (2021)

doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-021-02092-7

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