Let's not ignore the possibility that the reduction in pre-term birth could be due to women receiving less pre-natal screening, leading to conditions that would warrant immediate induction going undetected. In fact, data collected from a hospital in the UK indicates a 4X increase in the incidence of stillbirth.<p>From: <a href="https://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/934056" rel="nofollow">https://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/934056</a> edit: Non-paywalled: <a href="https://outline.com/MZUPk3" rel="nofollow">https://outline.com/MZUPk3</a><p>> The incidence of stillbirth was significantly higher during the pandemic period (16 of 1,718 births; 9.31 per 1,000 births) than the prepandemic period (four of 1,681 births; 2.38 per 1,000), a difference of 6.93 stillbirths per 1,000 births.<p>A hypothesis put forth by the authors on why this is:<p>> they say the uptick in stillbirths may be due to indirect effects such as a reluctance to go to the hospital when needed (such as in the case of reduced fetal movements), fear of contracting COVID-19, or not wanting to further burden the National Health Service. Changes in obstetric services may also have played a role.
Heart attacks are similarly down 40-60%.<p><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/06/well/live/coronavirus-doctors-hospitals-emergency-care-heart-attack-stroke.html" rel="nofollow">https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/06/well/live/coronavirus-doc...</a><p>And cancer diagnoses are down by half.<p><a href="https://youtu.be/TWF8KLKy-I0" rel="nofollow">https://youtu.be/TWF8KLKy-I0</a><p>Of course, no, they aren’t down, it’s just that people that absolutely should be going to the hospital aren’t and they’re endangering their lives trying to avoid COVID-19.<p>Could something similar be at play here?<p>I laughed out loud when they suggested that this is a “low stress” time to be pregnant. All indicators show the opposite.
Air pollution is something to be taken <i>very</i> seriously,<p>Regarding that (and since we are hackers here), I bought myself one of these last year:<p><a href="https://m5stack.com/products/pm-2-5-sensor-usb-power-sht20" rel="nofollow">https://m5stack.com/products/pm-2-5-sensor-usb-power-sht20</a><p>Pretty affordable and it works really well, readings match another device I have which was much more costly.<p>Since then I turn it on from time to time, I live in an apartment near a highway, I am impressed by:<p>How much air quality changes between days, during the day and depending on whether there's traffic or not,<p>how much it changes due to household activities (cooking, cleaning).<p>and how it changes when someone is smoking, even outside of my unit.<p>Thanks to this I have developed a routine of opening/closing windows at certain times that allows me to improve the average air quality inside my place. If I had the time (and some actuators) I could probably automate that, that would be cool yeah :D.<p>I highly recommend getting one of these or a similar sensor. Also, I'm looking to find something similar but capable of measuring CO and CO2, if anyone knows let me know.
Here is entirely anecdotal speculation as to why this is happening (credentials - mom of two). In the late stages of pregnancy the uterus starts preparing for birth by doing Braxton hicks contractions. The uterus flexes its muscles. They get stronger and physically push the baby down like a ping pong ball coming out of a balloon. BH contractions are also like clock ticks to pregnancy, the closer you get to delivery the more frequent and stronger they get. If you get dehydrated, they accelerate. If you get stressed out or exhausted, they accelerate. If you skip a meal, they accelerate. Late stage pregnancy mothers legitimately need less physical strain and more opportunity to take care of their bodies or the baby comes early. Keeping the same active pace of work for a few weeks in the third trimester can cost years of additional effort and suffering as a premature baby may accrue permanent damage. Remote work allows for your body to rest while your brains can work at full speed for longer. It is challenging to make “remote“ work right now, but for my part, I’m constantly prototyping and brainstorming ways to make the experience better. We can do so much more in our lifetimes if reduce the dangerous commutes.
Potential upstream causes:<p>"One is social distancing, which may have cut down on the amount of general infection from contact with others.<p>Another is less air pollution, from fewer cars being on the roads."<p>I'd love to see increased incentive for cities to act hastily on reducing <pm2.5 air pollution. Talk about a covert inequality exacerbator.
Here's a study from Denmark showing a 90% drop in the rate of extremely premature births (gestational age below 28 weeks - the HN article talks about 32 weeks, so the drops cannot be directly compared):<p><a href="https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.05.22.20109793v1" rel="nofollow">https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.05.22.20109793v...</a>
My guesses (in order of likelihood):<p>1) More sleep, and easier to respect their circadian rhythm<p>2) Reduced un-conscious stress levels related to: the comfort of being at home in a safe place...the comfort of knowing they won't go into labor early while far from home and around non-family members...the comfort of knowing they're eliminating unforeseen risks that come with venturing out into the world<p>3) Significant reduction of non-natural movements/processes such as: getting in/out of car, sitting in stiff desk chair all day, work-schedule dependent restroom use, commuting related stress<p>4.) Reduced air pollution
> "By staying home, a pregnant woman may have less stress from commuting and from work, and that might have helped them," Alshaikh said.<p>Ah yes, I'm sure my 7-months-pregnant wife would agree that this has been a lovely, low-stress time. Wouldn't have it any other way.
Interesting, their is also a big difference of % premature births between rich countries up to a factor of 3: <a href="https://obgyn.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/1471-0528.14273" rel="nofollow">https://obgyn.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/1471-...</a>
I have some anecdotal experience here which is not in the same trend.<p>Our baby was born 10 weeks premature on the 4 June, although her being premature seemed to be entirely unrelated to COVID-19. I'm happy to say they've been doing super well and we expect them to come home this week.<p>Although not related to prematureness, of interest in regards to pregnancy and COVID-19 was that the gynaecologist mentioned during pregnancy that they had anecdotally noticed that during our lockdown here babies in utero were on average noticeably bigger than usual. They supposed that it might be related to moms on average being more relaxed due to not needing to do things like stressful work commutes.<p>Our baby was quite a bit bigger than average for their maturity which was quite fortunate given how early they arrived.
> By staying home, a pregnant woman may have less stress from commuting and from work<p>Classically in Psychology the stress of planning a holiday is more than the stress of the death of a loved one.<p>This might now be considered wrong (?), but you are taught this because stress is not what the average person thinks it is.<p>That said, shopping and going out is now really stressful, it's an ongoing changing conditions we are not used to, so surely they mean physical stress, but not sure why they did not say that?<p>Is it because you can't politically say if women rest at home when pregnant it's better for the baby?
<i>Another is less air pollution, from fewer cars being on the roads.<p>"This might actually help because studies in the past showed that air pollution actually increases the risk for preterm birth," Alshaikh said.</i><p>One takeaway that doesn't involve arguing about the so-called Patriarchy and what not: Let's just try to lower pollution rates generally. It's good for everyone, including but not limited to pregnant women.
My son was born 10 weeks (started having issues 14 weeks) too early. One of the primary reasons he was born that early was that my wifes Cervical was expanding too fast. The remedy lay down don't move.<p>A simple explanation could simply be that by people having stayed at home they are less likely to be physically active and stressed.<p>I'll bet you that's the primary reason.
A similar thing has been reported in Denmark ("big fall in extremely premature births").<p><a href="https://www.tvmidtvest.dk/coronavirus/stort-fald-i-ekstremt-tidligt-foedte-boern-under-coronanedlukningen" rel="nofollow">https://www.tvmidtvest.dk/coronavirus/stort-fald-i-ekstremt-...</a>
Nevermind the 3 causes they are looking at.<p>I think that this is very likely due to removal/lessening of the impact of doctors on what is a natural process. If doctors are less involved, things take their natural course without problems.<p>Let's not forget, that the third largest cause of death (higher than covid) is iatrogenic death:
<a href="https://www.globalresearch.ca/drug-induced-iatrogenic-disorders-the-third-leading-cause-of-death-in-the-us-and-britain/5626283" rel="nofollow">https://www.globalresearch.ca/drug-induced-iatrogenic-disord...</a><p>There is, in fact, a strong case to be made for closing doctors, hospitals, etc down, in order to increase the populations health!<p>EDIT - I don't know why my comment is being downvoted. I think I'm making a rational, reasonable argument! If you disagree, no problem! But perhaps state why you think what I'm suggesting is wrong.
The stress of non-cummuting may have been offset by the stress of 'OMG there's a pandemic' - a more existential kind of things.<p>The Scientologists have some very aggressive rules about 'quiet' around baby and birth, rather extremist, but I think there is something to it.<p>Even in the womb, we are picking up information - imagine all the noise, hormones, moving around etc. we get from pre-birth to age 1.<p>I wonder if we should head out to the countryside 3 months before and after.<p>It would be powerful to see more research into this, because the results could be revelatory not just in relation to birth, but in other life activities.<p>Edit: I'm not suggesting there's any 'Science' in 'Scientology', rather, it's an expansive and odd cult with just a ton on out-of-the-box thinking, a lot of it initiated way back when treatment of mental illness was actually draconian (ie lobotomies, arbitrary detention, brutal treatment) and there are often 'kernels of truth' in some of these things. The 'quiet during and around birthing' always struck me as something actually rational in a way. Not scientific either but Glenn Gould attributed his musical genius to the fact his mother would play softly while he was still the womb (thus he's literally been playing 'before he was born') and I don't think it's unreasonable at all to think 'maybe there is something to it'. Early childhood events have incredible impact on our lives. I think of it like 'the time when the kernel code is established' and things gone wayward at that level cause idiosyncrasies for the rest of one's life.