Effects of intrauterine exposure to SARS-CoV-2 on infants’ development: A rapid review and meta-analysis
Bibliographic record
Abstract
Abstract Background Potential medium and long-term neurodevelopmental sequelae of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) infection during pregnancy have not been ruled out. Thus, we aimed to systematically review and summarize the evidence concerning the effects of intrauterine exposure to SARS-CoV-2 on infants’ development and behavior. Methods Scopus, PubMed, Web of Science, CINAHL, and PsycNet databases were searched for studies published up to November 04, 2022, investigating the repercussions of gestational SARS-CoV-2 on infants’ development and behavior. We performed a narrative synthesis according to updated protocols. Studies using comparison groups and with the Ages and Stages Questionnaires-Third Edition (ASQ-3) scores available were included in a meta-analysis performed according to Cochrane protocols. We used the Newcastle-Ottawa Quality Assessment Scale to analyze the risk of bias. Heterogeneity was calculated using the I 2 statistic. Results The search identified 2,552 studies. After removing duplicates and applying the eligibility criteria, we performed a narrative synthesis on eight included studies and a meta-analysis on three. There was no evidence of higher developmental delay rates in infants exposed to SARS-CoV-2 during pregnancy compared to non-exposed infants. However, the exposed infants scored lower than either of non-exposed children and pre-pandemic cohorts in some domains. Pooled results from the random-effects model indicated that SARS-CoV-2-exposed infants had lower scores on fine motor (mean difference [MD]=-4.70, 95% confidence interval [CI]: -8.76; -0.63), and problem-solving (MD=-3.05, 95% CI: -5.88; -0.22) domains than non-exposed (heterogeneity: I 2 = 69% and 88%, respectively). There was no difference between exposed and non-exposed infants in the communication, gross motor, and personal-social ASQ-3 domains. Conclusions We did not find evidence confirming the association between SARS-CoV-2 gestational exposure and neurodevelopmental delay. However, the meta-analysis indicated that gestational exposure negatively affected fine motor and problem-solving skills. Robust evidence on the topic is still incipient, and the available studies present methodological inconsistencies that limit the drawing of clear-cut conclusions.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame distilled prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. Learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and 10,348 direct Gemma labels. Candidate is the union of thresholded teacher heads; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels or direct frontier model labels.
Codex and Gemma teacher scores by category
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.005 | 0.007 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.007 | 0.002 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.003 | 0.007 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Open science | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Research integrity | 0.000 | 0.001 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one teacher head, not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".